Controversial Saatchi bill passes report stage in House of Lords

The controversial Medical Innovation Bill, a private member’s bill aimed at protecting doctors who try new treatments from litigation, has had its report stage in the UK parliament and is likely to complete its progress in the House of Lords in the New Year.

The bill, put forward by the Conservative peer Maurice Saatchi, whose wife Josephine Hart died from ovarian cancer, is opposed by the BMA and other main medical groups, who have argued that it was unnecessary and could become a “quack’s charter.” More than 100 …