Patient and public involvement in priority setting: should we listen to the will of the people? (360G-Wellcome-200384_Z_15_Z)

Decision-makers tasked with allocating resources within health systems often face huge pressure about funding decisions from patients and the public, often described as lobbying. One question that we may want to settle is how far particular priority setting decisions are influenced by lobbying and lobbyists. However, we might also ask another, ethical question: namely, to what extent should priority setters respond to political pressure when making decisions about the allocation of health care resources? In this project, I aim to provide a detailed philosophical analysis of how far decision-makers ought to respond to attempts by patient and public interest groups to influence priority setting decisions through lobbying and other forms of political pressure. The project will use an ‘empirical ethics’ approach, combining both philosophical analysis and qualitative research. Overall, the research is intended to achieve two primary goals: 1) To give a robust ethical analysis of priority-setters moral obligations to respond to, or act upon, lobbying and other kinds of political pressure by patients and the public when making decisions about how to allocate health care resources. 2) To give concrete practical advice to such decision-makers on how they ought to respond to lobbying in the future.