A shared statement of ethical principles for those who shape and give health care: A working draft from the Tavistock group

Health care delivery in many countries has expanded over the past 150 years from a largely social service delivered by individual practitioners to an intricate network of services provided by teams of professionals. The probl ems of in creasing resource consumption, financial constraints, complexity, and poor system design that have emerged as consequences of these changes have exacerbated many of the ethical tensions inherent in health care and h ave created new ones. Many groups of professionals that give and affect hea lth care have established separate codes of ethics for their own discipline s, but no shared code exists that might bring all stakeholders in health ca re into a more consistent moral framework. A multidisciplinary group theref ore recently met at Tavistock Square in London in an effort to prepare such a shared code. The result was not a code but a more basic and generic stat ement of ethical principles. The intent and hope is that it will offer clea r guidance for tough calls in real world settings. it is presented here not as a finished work, but as a draft to elicit comment, critique, suggestion s for revision, and, especially, ideas for implementation.