Consensus conferences are an increasingly accepted means of synthesising available information and of producing a widely agreed view of the value of medical techniques and advances. In the United Kingdom the King's Fund initiated their use, and developed them beyond their original purely professional focus by holding meetings in public, ...
Medical technology, defined broadly to include drugs, procedures and equipment used singly or in combination, has been of enormous benefit in improving the quality of health care. It has, however, raised many issues about how society can afford to pay for these often expensive developments and about associated ethical problems ...