medethics.ukA joint initiative with AlphaMED

Medical ethicsshould costnothing to learn.

Every medicine interview in the UK asks about ethics. Capacity, consent, the four pillars, a scandal from the news. The applicants who answer well usually had someone to explain it to them, a parent who is a doctor or a tutor who charges by the hour. Everyone else pieces it together from forums.

medethics.uk and AlphaMED publish the same material for free. 37 case studies on the cases interviewers raise, each with what happened, the ethical issues and the interview questions it has produced. 127 terms, from the four pillars to Gillick competence, each on its own page. Doctors and medical students write them and check them against the GMC guidance, NHS documents and court records they cite. There is no paywall and no sign up.

A joint initiative of medethics.uk and AlphaMED. medethics.uk keeps the directory. AlphaMED write the pages, keep them current and host them on alphamedicine.uk, so every link here opens there in a new tab.

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Five cases to read first

  1. Lucy Letby and the Thirlwall InquiryDoctors at the Countess of Chester Hospital warned managers about a nurse after a run of unexplained baby deaths. Managers were slow to call the police and told the doctors to apologise to her. The public inquiry into what went wrong reported in September 2026.
  2. Martha's Rule and patient safetyMartha Mills died of sepsis at 13 after her parents' worries were not acted on. Every acute hospital in England now has to offer the rule named after her, and it has been used more than 19,000 times.
  3. Resident doctor strikesDoctors in training in England first went on strike over pay in March 2023. By the time they accepted a deal, by 53% to 47%, the argument was as much about a shortage of jobs.
  4. Physician associates after two deathsPhysician associates work under a doctor's supervision and are not doctors. Two deaths sit at the centre of the debate about the role.
  5. Infected blood scandalMore than 30,000 NHS patients caught HIV or hepatitis C from their treatment in the 1970s and 1980s. A public inquiry reported in 2024, compensation payments began that December, and no one has been prosecuted.

Five terms to know cold

  1. Four pillars of medical ethicsThe four pillars of medical ethics are autonomy, beneficence, non maleficence and justice.
  2. CapacityCapacity is the ability to make a particular decision for yourself at the time it needs to be made.
  3. Informed consentInformed consent is a patient's agreement to a treatment, given freely, with capacity, and with the information they need.
  4. Gillick competenceGillick competence is the test for whether a child under 16 can consent to their own medical treatment.
  5. Duty of candourThe duty of candour is the duty to be open and honest with patients when something goes wrong with their care.

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How an ethics station works

Most stations give you a scenario and ask what you would do. The marks are for the reasoning, so take the four steps in order and say each one out loud.

  1. Say what you know from the scenario and what you would want to find out before deciding.
  2. Name the principles in tension. In most scenarios two of the four pillars pull against each other.
  3. Weigh them for this patient, bringing in the law and GMC guidance where they apply.
  4. Commit to a course of action and say what would change your mind.
  • AutonomyAutonomy is a patient's right to make their own decisions about their body and their treatment.
  • BeneficenceBeneficence is the duty to act in the patient's best interests.
  • Non maleficenceNon maleficence is the duty to avoid harming patients, often summed up as "first, do no harm".
  • JusticeJustice is the duty to treat patients fairly and to share limited resources fairly.

The directory

37 cases and 127 terms. Each opens in a new tab.

Cases by pillar

Case studies

Safety (9)

  • Birthmarks mistaken for bruisesMost Asian and Black babies are born with blue grey birthmarks that can look like bruises. In 2024 a mother in Hampshire was held overnight by police after her son's were taken as a sign of abuse.
  • Corridor care in NHS hospitalsCorridor care means looking after patients in corridors, waiting rooms and other parts of a hospital never built for it, because every bed is full. The government and NHS England both call it unacceptable. NHS England still counted about 3,300 patients a day in September 2026.
  • Edenfield Centre abuse scandalThe Edenfield Centre is a secure mental health unit in Manchester whose patients are not free to leave. In 2022 a reporter working there undercover filmed staff mocking and mistreating them.
  • Infected blood scandalMore than 30,000 NHS patients caught HIV or hepatitis C from their treatment in the 1970s and 1980s. A public inquiry reported in 2024, compensation payments began that December, and no one has been prosecuted.
  • Lucy Letby and the Thirlwall InquiryDoctors at the Countess of Chester Hospital warned managers about a nurse after a run of unexplained baby deaths. Managers were slow to call the police and told the doctors to apologise to her. The public inquiry into what went wrong reported in September 2026.
  • Martha's Rule and patient safetyMartha Mills died of sepsis at 13 after her parents' worries were not acted on. Every acute hospital in England now has to offer the rule named after her, and it has been used more than 19,000 times.
  • Nottingham maternity scandalThe Ockenden review of maternity care at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust, published on 24 June 2026, graded 520 maternity and neonatal cases as potentially avoidable. Police are investigating whether the trust itself committed corporate manslaughter, and in September 2026 the trust reported that 215,000 maternity records had been lost.
  • Self swab DNA kits and the advert banA non profit called Enough gives university students kits to swab themselves for an attacker's DNA after a sexual assault. Doctors and police say a court may refuse a home swab. On 20 May 2026 the advertising regulator banned adverts that said the evidence could be used in court.
  • Valproate harm and the redress delaySodium valproate, sold as Epilim, can harm babies whose mothers took it in pregnancy. The 2020 review and the 2024 Hughes report both called for redress. As of October 2026 government has announced neither a scheme nor a timetable.

End of life (3)

  • Indi Gregory and best interestsIndi was eight months old and had a disease with no cure. Her parents wanted treatment to continue, and a hospital in Rome offered to take her. Judges in England ruled that it was in her best interests to stop.
  • Max and Keira's Law and deemed consentIn England, adults who die are treated as willing to donate organs unless they recorded a refusal. Families are still asked, and they agree less often than they did in 2020/21. The argument is over whether silence can ever count as consent.
  • Sudiksha Thirumalesh and mental capacityShe was 19, awake, and wanted to try an experimental treatment abroad. A judge decided she could not make that choice for herself. Ten months after her death, the Court of Appeal said the judge had got it wrong.

Workforce (3)

  • Medical Training (Prioritisation) Act 2026A new law puts UK medical graduates first for foundation and specialty training posts. It became law in March 2026 as applications for those posts grew sharply, and doctors trained abroad who already work in the NHS say it treats them unfairly.
  • Physician associates after two deathsPhysician associates work under a doctor's supervision and are not doctors. Two deaths sit at the centre of the debate about the role.
  • Resident doctor strikesDoctors in training in England first went on strike over pay in March 2023. By the time they accepted a deal, by 53% to 47%, the argument was as much about a shortage of jobs.

Data (5)

  • AI in NHS breast screeningEach NHS breast screen is read by two specialists. The EDITH trial tests whether one reader with AI can match two. The evidence so far measures cancers found and missed, not whether fewer women die of breast cancer.
  • AI scribes in the NHSAI scribes write up clinical notes from a recording of the consultation. NHS England warned in 2025 that many suppliers had not met its standards, and in July 2026 the MHRA said that some products solely intended to transcribe or summarise are not medical devices.
  • Donor anonymity and DNA testsSperm and egg donors who gave between 1991 and 2005 were promised anonymity. DNA tests now let relatives find donors who never agreed to be found, and the regulator wants identity released from birth.
  • Palantir and the NHS data platformNHS England is paying a group led by Palantir, a US technology company, up to £330m for software that joins up hospital data. The BMA and two committees of MPs want the NHS to drop the company, and more than 44,000 people have filed legal objections. A decision on whether to keep it is due by December 2026.
  • Synnovis NHS cyber attackIn June 2024 criminals locked the computer systems of the lab that runs blood tests for two of London's biggest hospital trusts. More than 10,000 appointments were postponed, and a long wait for a blood test result contributed to one patient's death.

Research (7)

  • AI designed coronavirus vaccine trialScientists at Cambridge used machine learning to design one vaccine meant to protect against a whole family of coronaviruses. A first trial in 39 healthy volunteers found it safe. Cambridge said in June 2026 that the technology could prevent pandemics, though the trial was never meant to show whether the vaccine works.
  • Mitochondrial donation and the Newcastle birthsMitochondrial donation is a licensed IVF technique that swaps the damaged mitochondria in an egg for healthy ones from a donor, so that a child carries far less of the faulty DNA behind a serious inherited disease. Newcastle reported eight babies born this way in July 2025, and experts say larger studies are still needed before its safety and benefit can be judged.
  • Neuralink UK brain implant trialA brain implant made by* Neuralink *was first placed in a UK patient at University College London Hospitals in October 2025. It is a research trial, not a treatment, and its results have not yet been published in a peer reviewed journal.
  • Polygenic embryo screeningPolygenic embryo screening ranks IVF embryos by predicted risk of disease. The UK regulator says it is unlawful here, yet reports say some UK couples send their embryo data abroad to get the ranking anyway.
  • Replacing animal testing in the UKAnimals are still used to test whether new medicines and chemicals are safe. In November 2025 the UK set out a strategy to replace these tests with dated aims, while 2025 figures showed fewer procedures overall but more experiments on dogs, primates and birds.
  • Smoking and lung cancer consensusIn 1950 two British researchers found that almost every man with lung cancer in their study smoked. The British government called the link probably causal in 1954 but accepted it outright only in 1962, and the US government followed in 1964. Part of the delay was caution about evidence that came from observing people, and part was a tobacco industry that worked to keep the question open.
  • Womb transplants in the UKA woman born without a working womb received her sister's womb in 2023, and two babies have been born in the UK after the operation. The charity that funds the programme pays the NHS for each operation, and the operation is not life saving.

Public health (5)

  • ADHD and autism overdiagnosis debateFar more people in England are diagnosed with ADHD and autism than 25 years ago. People disagree over whether ordinary difficulties are being given medical labels, or people who were missed for years are at last being recognised. A government review reported on 9 October 2026 that it could not show overdiagnosis on a large scale, partly because the data are out of date. It wants help to be given on need, without waiting for a diagnosis.
  • Cholera and the birth of epidemiologyIn 1854 a London doctor, John Snow, traced a cholera outbreak in Soho to a single water pump by mapping where the dead had lived, and the pump's handle was taken off. Officials rejected his claim that dirty water spread the disease until another epidemic in 1866. His way of finding a cause, by counting who fell ill and where, is the basis of epidemiology. In 2025, 7,870 cholera deaths were still reported worldwide.
  • Opioid crisis and OxyContinOxyContin, a strong opioid painkiller, was sold in the United States from the mid 1990s as less addictive than other opioids. About 806,000 Americans died of opioid overdoses between 1999 and 2023. Its maker and an affiliate have both pleaded guilty, and a $7.4 billion settlement with the company and its owners, the Sackler family, took effect in May 2026.
  • Vaping and the generational smoking banFewer than one in ten UK adults now smoke, and more people in Great Britain vape than smoke. Vapes help smokers quit, but about 1.1 million people who never smoked use them too. Under a law passed in April 2026, nobody born in 2009 or later will be sold tobacco from January 2027.
  • Weight loss drugs for childrenWeight loss injections such as Wegovy are licensed in the UK from the age of 12, and drug companies are testing them in children as young as six. On 7 October 2026 the World Health Organization said it does not recommend any obesity medicine for a child under 10. It said too little is known about what the drugs do to a growing body.

Funding (4)

  • Alzheimer's drugs and NHS fundingLecanemab and donanemab slow the decline in early Alzheimer's disease, but NICE has refused to fund them because the benefit is too small for the cost. The companies appealed, and in July 2026 NICE paused its reviews while they negotiate with NHS England.
  • Casgevy and NHS fundingCasgevy is a gene editing treatment for sickle cell disease and beta thalassaemia, priced at £1,651,000 per course. NICE recommends it with managed access for a narrow group while more evidence is collected.
  • Covid PPE procurement and the VIP laneDuring the Covid pandemic the government bought masks, gowns and other protective equipment at speed. The Covid Inquiry reported on that buying in July 2026. At the centre of the dispute is the VIP lane, a fast route for offers from MPs, ministers and senior officials.
  • Hong Kong A&E fee riseOn 1 January 2026 Hong Kong's public hospitals raised the A&E fee from HK$180 to HK$400 and made A&E free for the sickest patients. The aim was to move minor cases to clinics so that urgent patients are seen sooner. A&E in the NHS is free, and a former health secretary has argued for charging.

Global health (1)

  • Healthcare in war zonesIn war, international law requires every side to care for the wounded, whoever they are, and to leave hospitals alone. The World Health Organization has counted more than 10,400 attacks on health care since 2017, including 217 in Sudan and more than 3,300 in Ukraine.

Terms

Ethics (44)

NHS (41)

Often confused (11)

Hong Kong (5)

Applying (26)

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