TY - JOUR T1 - Reconfiguring what is owed to patients in planning and delivering health care JF - Journal of Medical Ethics JO - J Med Ethics SP - 487 LP - 488 DO - 10.1136/medethics-2017-104474 VL - 43 IS - 8 AU - Michael Dunn Y1 - 2017/08/01 UR - http://jme.bmj.com/content/43/8/487.abstract N2 - The August issue of the Journal of Medical Ethics takes us from the intimate spaces of healthcare encounters between doctors, nurses and patients to the outer reaches of health policy design and planning. We travel from the early days of life with arguments that consider when children’s participation in research should begin and end, to its very end – with considered reflections on how best to provide assistance in the dying process both within and outside the healthcare context. One striking feature of our journey through the various claims presented in this set of papers is a concerted and carefully reasoned attempt to reconfigure and clarify the precise nature of the duties that are owed to patients. This effort takes place both in the context of particular healthcare encounters, and in terms of how we conceive of, and plan, the delivery of health services in changing political times. Novel obligations, subtle interpretations of well-established duties, and new recommendations for innovation in practice abound as we map out the argumentative terrain presented to us by this month’s contributors.Three papers in this month’s issue focus our attention on what is owed by practitioners to patients at the bedside, and what interventions might best realise these duties in practice. Charles ( see page 506 ) examines a broader relational conception of autonomy, which she believes better captures what is owed to patients receiving care in hospital, and provides a compelling case that, as expert nurses are best placed to support patient autonomy so long as they are properly supported by the institutions in which they work. For Charles, this emphasis on the consequent obligations that institutions possess in ensuring that … ER -