Innovation in medicine through degeneration in law? A critical perspective on the Medical Innovation Bill

The current debate surrounding the Medical Innovation Bill purports to be aimed at improving the normative framework to the extent that innovation is more likely. A closer look at the mechanisms of the proposed legislation and a more detailed assessment of the reasons given for initiating the legislative process in this instance reveal that the Bill seem to rest on a significant misunderstanding of the current law of medical negligence. This article analyses the provisions of the Bill, puts them into the wider context of medical negligence and critically reviews the utility of the proposed legislation. © The Author(s) 2014