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NICE: Lifestyles could lead to denial of treatment

Date published: 09/12/2005

The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) said yesterday that patients who smoke, drink too much or are obese could be denied medical help if their lifestyle is likely to undermine their treatment.

"If the self-inflicted cause of the condition will influence the likely outcome of a particular treatment, then it may be appropriate to take this into account in some circumstances." NICE said in a report. The report states for example that if an asthma sufferer is also a heavy smoker and refused to stop, treatment could be withheld.

The institute said that the report and its contents would not be issued as guidance in the NHS, but it is thought that its recommendations will be used in developing policy at NICE.

A spokeswoman for NICE told the Guardian: "We want to reassure people that in producing our guidance we are not going to take into consideration whether or not a particular condition was or is self-inflicted. The only circumstances where that may be taken into account is where that treatment may be less effective because of lifestyle choices."

While ruling on self inflicted conditions NICE positively ruled out any discrimination against patients on grounds of age. NICE insisted that individual patient care choices would still be left up to doctors, nurses and other NHS health workers.

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