Kate Ghose
Patients denied life-saving treatment on grounds of cost; elderly people kept under a 'chemical cosh'; parents holding multiple funerals after their babies' organs are removed. Just a few of the human rights horror stories to hit the headlines in recent years.
But the recent roundtable organised by the Guardian and the Equality and Human Rights Commission raised the prospect of looking at human rights and healthcare through a different lens.
Can human rights be the driver that focuses on prevention rather than cure by helping people do the right thing first time round?
Human rights and healthcare have always had a close relationship. The NHS was born in 1948, the same year the international community came together to set down in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights the fundamental rights that belong to all human beings, including the right to healthcare.
At the heart of the NHS, we can see the very same values that underpin that human rights declaration. Over the years, British people have formed a deep attachment to the founding ideal of the NHS: free healthcare for all at the point of need and not based on the ability to pay.
But the idea of human rights as a means of achieving good quality healthcare – experiences as well as outcomes – has not taken root, unlike other countries which recognise access to adequate healthcare as a fundamental human right.
Now the Human Rights Act 1998 offers a fresh impetus for looking at the practical value of human rights in helping to deliver improved healthcare.
A 'framework' law designed more for culture change than rafts of litigation, it offers new ways into the age-old problem faced by the NHS – how to keep human beings, rather than systems or targets, at the heart of delivery.
A human rights approach can be a helpful guide
With budgets shrinking, managers and practitioners face stark decisions about the allocation of resources. A human rights approach can be a helpful guide, as it explicitly requires prioritisation of the most vulnerable people rather than those who shout the loudest.
Human rights are designed to shift the balance of power by empowering people to challenge the state. This is challenging for traditional hierarchies like the NHS. But in an age where health services are developing a different kind of relationship with patients that is more person-centred, human rights can offer a practical way of managing this process which empowers staff as well as service users.
Examples such as the consultant who convinced staff to respect the routine of an 89-old patient with dementia; the practitioner who successfully challenged the over-medication of people with learning disabilities; and the family who challenged brutality towards their child on a hospital ward.
The NHS constitution, published earlier this year, placed human rights ideals firmly back at the heart of the health service. These and other examples show how this commitment can be translated into practical and powerful differences to the day to day healthcare experiences of people.
Katie Ghose is director, British Institute of Human Rights
From Bubb's Blog
From Whitehall Watch
