PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Fritz, Zoë
AU  - Huppert, Julian L
AU  - Liddell, Kathleen
AU  - Holton, Richard
AU  - Fuld, Jonathan P
TI  - Ethical principles and a practical approach to support policy making through the next phases of the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond
AID  - 10.7861/clinmed.2020-0843
DP  - 2020 Dec 29
TA  - Clinical Medicine
PG  - clinmed.2020-0843
4099  - http://www.rcpjournals.org/content/early/2020/12/23/clinmed.2020-0843.short
4100  - http://www.rcpjournals.org/content/early/2020/12/23/clinmed.2020-0843.full
AB  - There is an urgent need for an ethical framework to help us address the local and national challenges that we face as clinicians during the COVID-19 pandemic. We propose four key commitments from which a practical and consistent ethical approach can be derived. These commitments are to articulate the needs, rights and interests of the different stakeholders affected by any policy; to be accountable and transparent, recognising that people are autonomous individuals with values and concerns of their own; to consider the impact of our actions on the sustainability of the NHS, infrastructure, service demands and staff welfare; and to treat everybody equitably, with all deserving of consideration and care. Implementing these commitments will require a number of specific actions. We must put in place frameworks enabling clear advocacy for each competing objective; communicate policy and practice effectively to the public; promote integration of decision-making among social, primary, secondary and tertiary care and reduce or stop unnecessary or inefficient interventions; minimise health inequalities; and build spare capacity into the system.In this article, we expand on these actions, and note the legal context in which this would be delivered.