ABSTRACT
They and other consumers would also favour leaving such choices to clinicians on the basis that doctors and nurses are more likely to take the individual's needs and wishes into account. However, it creates increasing tension and guilt for clinicians when they recognise the nature of the comparisons and judgements about individuals that they are being forced to make, and which may conflict with their professional ethic (Butler, 1999). It is also likely to be inequitable across the UK, because each clinician operates in different resource contexts and has many other influences on his or her judgements about what is more worth doing than something else. Given that professional ethics are especially crucial for the protection of the best interests of patients in a non-market healthcare system such as in the UK, this is a responsibility which, arguably, is itself unethical.
