CHORDS - Community: Healthcare Organisation and Regulation in a Diverse Society

The CHORDS scoping study set out to identify and critically examine the ways in which 'community' is conceptualised in health law and ethics. Drawing on a review of the existing literature, along with three in-depth case studies (on rural healthcare, organ transplants and alcohol policy), two main findings emerged. First, the community is frequently missing in legal and ethical analysis of healthcare, and where the term is used it is rare for there to be any critical analysis of the concept. Second, where the concept of community is used it carries considerable weight, with writers and policy-makers using it to support the legitimacy of actions and interventions. As a result we conclude that there is a need for further research critically analysing the ways in which concepts of community function in contemporary health law and ethics. More specifically there is a need for more research on the ways in which assumptions about the community are used in ethical and legal analysis of healthcare policy and practice, including the ways in which these are challenged by practices such as medical migration, and in critically analysing the way the good of the community is used in the justification of health policy.