Legal systems vary worldwide but certain aspects of technology use may draw the attention of legal systems regardless of their cultural basis. At the level of professional practice, ethics and the law are linked because unethical practice is illegal. Illegal practice can lead to criminal or civil proceedings against individual healthcare practitioners and also the institutions and organisations where they work. 

In general, legal aspects that are relevant to HTA relate to responsibility and its legal counterpart, liability. HTA bodies need to consider legal issues and a framework for considering them is important in any assessment of a health technology. 

Additionally, HTA bodies must be aware that stakeholders who disagree with an assessment’s conclusions may turn to the courts. Therefore, an HTA body that does not take reasonable steps to ensure a high quality assessment may itself be at risk of legal action for failing to perform a responsible assessment. 

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If you would like to learn more about the HTA Core Model for Rapid Relative Effectiveness Assessment (REA) of Pharmaceuticals, adapted by EUnetHTA, and check the ELSI checklist developed for quickly assessing the relevance of the ethical, organisational, societal, and legal issues in the assessment, click here 🔗.

📌Interactive activity

Time to test your knowledge: Read the sentences carefully and select the correct word for each bracket 

This is not the assessment, it is just an interactive activity to help you with your learning.