Joyce Robins

Founder, Patient Concern

“I am a founder of Patient Concern, which I helped form 11 years ago. Patient Concern is a non-profit organisation committed to promoting choice and empowerment for all health service users. It operates as a network of patients, carers, lawyers, journalists, ethicists and human rights activists, and is active in all areas of the health service, campaigning on patient issues.

“Consent is one of our main issues, and we have made a lot of strides on this. The level of caution exercised, with regards to consent is not excessive, and most patients would agree. This is the relevance of the HTA. I see the HTA as a bastion; protecting the rights of our bodies. The Human Tissue Act is the golden thread which runs through everything, protecting our tissues and organs and the HTA makes sure this happens. We welcome this; it is an extremely valuable thing as providing people with the right information is very important to them. The reason the HTA was set up has not gone away – we ignore this at our peril.”