Abstract

A repudiation of Muireann Quigley’s argument that the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) values and assesses the worth of people’s lives; together with an alternative account of what it appears that NICE actually does, why these procedures are not unreasonable and some of the unresolved problems, especially when making interpersonal comparisons of health, which remain for NICE or, indeed, anyone seeking to determine the contents of the benefits bundles of a public health insurance programme such as the NHS. Some other ethically dubious propositions by Dr Quigley are also rejected.