Valley Medical Centre, Bristol, UK.
J Health Serv Res Policy. 2010 Apr;15 Suppl 2:62-7. doi: 10.1258/jhsrp.2009.009095. Epub 2010 Feb 10.
A new Department of Health policy in England, published in 2007, recommended changes to the pre-employment health checks performed on health care workers before taking up their employment. The policy proposed that all new health care workers should receive immunization against TB and hepatitis B and should be offered testing for hepatitis C and HIV. It also advanced a new requirement that staff who perform exposure-prone procedures must be tested for TB, hepatitis B and C and HIV and must test negative for these diseases. Essentially mandatory HIV testing has been introduced for a large number of health care workers. The aim of the recommendations is to protect patients from contracting serious communicable diseases from health care professionals. Secondary objectives of the directive are to maintain confidence in the workforce and reduce the burden of patient notification exercises. This essay explores some of the shortcomings of this policy and examines the reasons why this policy will fail to meet its objectives. The justification for this new guidance is questioned and some of the ethical issues are highlighted.
2007 年，英国发布了一项新的卫生部政策，建议对即将入职的医护人员进行入职前体检。该政策建议所有新入职的医护人员都应接种结核和乙肝疫苗，并应提供丙肝和艾滋病病毒检测。该政策还提出了一项新的要求，即从事易感染暴露的医护人员必须进行结核、乙肝和丙肝及艾滋病病毒检测，检测结果必须为阴性。大量医护人员实际上被强制进行了艾滋病病毒检测。这些建议旨在保护患者免受医护人员传播的严重传染病的侵害。该指令的次要目标是维护员工队伍的信心，并减少患者通知活动的负担。本文探讨了该政策的一些缺陷，并研究了该政策未能实现其目标的原因。对这一新指导意见的理由提出了质疑，并强调了一些伦理问题。
