The Changing Face of the NHS: Markets and Morality

The increasing role of market mechanisms and the changing types of health care providers, together with the use of choice and competition to drive improvements in quality in the National Health Service (NHS), all have important ethical implications. Dr Frith will explore these developments and consider how the NHS can respond to the challenges of austerity, changing demographics and political agendas. In order for the NHS to continue providing the level of service quality that out-performs many high income countries despite spending much less on health care, we need a re-think of creeping marketisation and privatisation.

Dr Lucy Frith is Senior Lecturer in Bioethics and Social Science in the University of Liverpool’s Medical School. She has a taught health care ethics to medical students and health care professionals for a number of years. Her research focuses on the social and ethical aspects of health-care decision-making, policy and regulation. She has carried out research on reproductive technologies (gamete and embryo donation); research ethics (clinical trials and public involvement and cross-cultural issues in consent); and the changing NHS. She has held visiting fellowships at the Centre for Research in Arts, Social Science and Humanities (CRASSH) at the University of Cambridge and the Centre for Medical Ethics and Law at the University of Hong Kong.

Doors 10.30. Entry £3, £2 concs./free to Conway Hall Ethical Society members.

Tea, coffee & biscuits will be available.