The latest incarnation of the Saatchi Bill – a piece of legislation properly known as the Access to Medical Treatments (Innovation) Bill – has its report stage in the Commons tomorrow. I’ve written before about the problems with this Bill, which is now being taken through Parliament by Tory MP Chris Heaton-Harris, and it now seems that a cross-party group of MPs will tomorrow succeed in making a well-meaning bill less dangerous.
A series of amendments from Labour, Tory, SNP, SDLP and DUP members will remove the sections of the Bill that are aimed at preventing a doctor from being sued for negligence if they decide to use an ‘innovative’ treatment for an illness, which is what had worried clinicians so much. It also rolls in clauses from another Private Member’s Bill, the Off-Patent Drugs Bill, which was talked out at its second reading by Alistair Burt because the government did not support that particular piece of legislation.
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