Public should be told that rationing is inevitable, say doctors

The public should be warned that rationing of health care is inevitable, doctors said at their annual representatives' meeting in Torquay this week. The doctors also agreed that members of the public should be given explicit advice on which services are available on the NHS so that they can make provision for treatments that fall outside the health service.

Alex Smallwood, from the BMA's Junior Doctors Committee, told the meeting, "Rationing has become a necessary evil. It is no longer possible to provide all the latest treatments without detriment to others. But we need to formalise it.