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Quality of Life and Resource Allocation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 January 2010

Michael Lockwood
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Extract

A new word has recently entered the British medical vocabulary. What it stands for is neither a disease nor a cure. At least, it is not a cure for a disease in the medical sense. But it could, perhaps, be thought of as an intended cure for a medicosociological disease: namely that of haphazard or otherwise ethically inappropriate allocation of scarce medical resources. What I have in mind is the term ‘QALY’, which is an acronym standing for quality adjusted life year. Just what this means and what it is intended to do I shall explain in due course. Let me first, however, set the scene.

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Papers
Information
Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplements , Volume 23: Philosophy and Medical Welfare , March 1988 , pp. 33 - 55
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy and the contributors 1988

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References

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