Quality of Life and Resource Allocation
Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplements, vol. 23, 1988, pp. 33–55
Abstract
A new word has recently entered the British medical vocabulary. What it stands for is neither a disease nor a cure. At least, it is not a cure for a disease in the medical sense. But it could, perhaps, be thought of as an intended cure for a medicosociological disease: namely that of haphazard or otherwise ethically inappropriate allocation of scarce medical resources. What I have in mind is the term ‘QALY’, which is an acronym standing for quality adjusted life year . Just what this means and what it is intended to do I shall explain in due course. Let me first, however, set the scene.
