Medical Law: Text, Cases, and Materials

Citation

Jackson, E., Auckland, C., & Gibbs, H. (2026). Medical Law: Text, Cases, and Materials (7th ed.). Oxford University Press.

Chapter Summary

The seventh edition has eighteen chapters, one more than the sixth, because a chapter on biotechnology and artificial intelligence has been added before the chapter on embryo research. The book is a text, cases and materials work: extracts from cases and from academic and ethical materials sit beside the authors' commentary. The publisher states that Central Issues sections at the start of each chapter outline the key concepts and that further reading sections at the end point to other sources.

Chapters 1–2: An Introduction to Bioethics; The Provision of Health Care Services: the NHS, Resource Allocation, and Public Health

The opening chapter introduces the ethical frameworks used throughout. The second turns to the organisation of health care. The publisher lists discussion of NHS organisational reforms under the Health and Care Act 2022 as new.

Chapter 3: Medical Malpractice

Clinical negligence. New material covers recent negligence cases, including Paul v Wolverhampton NHS Trust on secondary victims and psychiatric injury, and a new section on public inquiries as a response to systemic healthcare failings.

Chapters 4–6: Informed Consent; Incapacity I: Adults; Incapacity II: Children

Consent to treatment, then decision-making for adults who lack capacity and for children. The publisher mentions the new negligence case McCulloch v Forth Valley Health Board on informed consent.

Chapters 7–9: Mental Health Law; Confidentiality; Genetic Information

Compulsory powers and mental health law, with coverage of the changes to be implemented by the Mental Health Act 2025; confidentiality, with a new section on the tort of misuse of private information; and genetic information.

Chapters 10–12: Clinical Research; The Regulation of Medicines; Organ Transplantation

Research on patients and participants, the regulation of medicines, and organ transplantation.

Chapters 13–14: Biotechnology and Artificial Intelligence; Embryo Research, Stem Cells, and Emerging Biotechnologies

Two chapters on new technologies. The publisher describes a significantly revised chapter on emerging technologies, including organoids and embryo models, with new material on the implications of AI for health care.

Chapters 15–18: Abortion; Assisted Conception; Surrogacy; Assisted Dying

The reproduction and end-of-life chapters. The publisher notes developments in abortion law, including decriminalisation for women and new buffer-zone legislation, and an explanation of the implications of the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill.

Key Concepts

Chapters 1–3: Ethics, services and negligence

• Bioethics frameworks: the principles used to evaluate the law.
• Resource allocation and public health: how the NHS decides what to provide.
• Medical malpractice: liability for clinical negligence.

Chapters 4–9: Consent, capacity and information

• Informed consent: what patients must be told and when consent is valid.
• Incapacity: decisions for adults and children who cannot decide for themselves.
• Confidentiality and misuse of private information: duties of confidence and the privacy tort.

Chapters 10–18: Research, technology and life's boundaries

• Clinical research and medicines regulation: protection of participants and control of medicines.
• Emerging biotechnology and AI: legal questions raised by new technologies.
• Reproduction and dying: abortion, assisted conception, surrogacy and assisted dying.

Critical Analysis

Strengths

• Texts, cases and materials together. Case extracts provide the legal context and facts, extracts from other materials supply different ethical perspectives and current debates, and the authors' commentary guides readers to their own view, as the publisher describes.
• Study aids in every chapter. Central Issues sections open each chapter and further reading closes it.
• Wide span of topics. Eighteen chapters run from bioethics, the NHS and malpractice through consent and confidentiality to research, reproduction and assisted dying.
• Updated for recent law. The edition covers the Health and Care Act 2022, the Mental Health Act 2025, recent negligence cases, AI in health care, abortion developments and the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill.

Limitations

• Length. At close to 1,000 pages this is a long book; a course will select among the chapters.
• UK focus. The coverage is of UK medical law, so readers elsewhere need other sources.
• Extracts rather than overview. The text, cases and materials format spends space on extracts, so a student wanting a short narrative account may prefer a more compact text.

Where It Fits in the Course

Jackson, Auckland and Gibbs is the text, cases and materials option among the medical law books in this course. Brazier, Cave and Heywood's Medicine, Patients and the Law is an accessible survey that sets medicine in its social and ethical context, and Foster's Medical Law: A Very Short Introduction is a brief starting point that works from well-known cases to principles. Herring's Medical Law and Ethics and Pattinson's Medical Law and Ethics present the law together with the ethical arguments, the latter combining detailed legal analysis with moral theory. Mason and McCall Smith's Law and Medical Ethics, now edited by Farrell and Dove, is the long-established account that combines analysis of legislation and case law with competing ethical positions and covers Scots law as well as English law.

How to Use This Book

The book is for students taking a medical law or healthcare law course who want the primary materials as well as commentary, and for those writing essays or dissertations on a particular topic.

A practical plan: read Chapters 1 and 2 for the ethical and institutional frame, then Chapters 3 to 6 for malpractice, consent and incapacity, which underlie later chapters. Choose from Chapters 7 to 12 according to the syllabus, and take Chapters 13 to 18 for the reproduction, technology and end-of-life topics that often form the final weeks. Read the Central Issues section before each chapter, the case extracts with the commentary, and use the further reading for essay research.