The Centre for Health Services Studies (CHSS) is pleased to announce that our next seminar will be delivered by Professor Michael Calnan of The University of Kent and is titled Still Elegantly muddling through: Trust and the management of uncertainty in healthcare rationing decisions in England.

The seminar will be held on Wednesday 07 October 2015 from 13.30 to 15.00 in the Knowledge Management Centre at CHSS, University of Kent, Canterbury Campus.

Abstract: This paper examines the technological appraisals carried out by NICE (National Institute for Health and Care Excellence) as it regulates the provision of expensive new drugs within the English NHS on cost effectiveness grounds. Ostensibly this is a highly rational process by which the regulatory process absorbs uncertainty but in practice decision-making is more complex and uncertain. However, few investigations have explored how uncertainty is dealt with at the micro-level. This paper draws on ethnographic data interviews with a range of stakeholders (including clinical and patient experts, managers from the regulatory agency and representatives of the drug manufacturers) and decision-makers (n=41), observations of public and closed regulator meetings, and documentary analysis regarding the decision-making processes involving three different pharmaceutical products. This ESRC funded study explores the various ways in which different forms of uncertainty epistemic, procedural, relational and others are perceived, considered, presented and tackled both formally and informally within these drug appraisals.

To book your place, please contact Helen Wooldridge by email at: h.l.wooldridge@kent.ac.uk