2025/07/21 by Emma Temple, Jennifer Waspe · 1 voice
Health Professions · Medicine · #Ethics and Legal Issues in Pediatric Healthcare #Ethics in medical practice #Palliative Care and End-of-Life Issues
paper · pdf · doi:10.1111/anae.16690
openalex publication_date 2025/07/21 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/15
best interests; end-of-life decision-making; medical futility; non-beneficial treatment; withdrawal of lifesustaining therapy Overtreatment at the end of life is a growing concern within the medical community, particularly where treatment aims to prolong life rather than enhance its quality [1].Studies suggest that up to 33-38% of treatments delivered in this context are non-beneficial [2].This not only risks direct harm to patients and their next of kin but undermines the distributive justice essential to our healthcare system.Though `non-beneficialis a nebulous term, clinicians have long used the concept of medical futility to identify when treatment lacks benefit.Whilst the UK General Medical Council (GMC) maintains that there is no obligation to provide futile care [3], the concept not only attracts criticism but lacks legal authority as a decision-making tool.This is, at least in part, because medical decision-making is determined increasingly not by scientific possibility, but by value-driven ethical, moral or religious considerations [4] which are not embodied by traditional `medical onceptions of futility.This article examines how medical futility is interpreted and applied at law in England and Wales, framing it as a dual concept with both quantitative and qualitative limbs.We will also explore the `burdens and benefitsapproach to assessing qualitative futility and suggest an approach to determining qualitative futility grounded in the concept of moral status.