An overview of trends in the regulation of clinical ethics committee; an opinion from the Italian National Bioethics Committee [Una visión general de las tendencias en la regulación por los comités de ética clínica: una opinión del Comité Nacional Italiano de Bioética]

In 2017, the Italian National Bioethics Commttee (INBC) released an opinion paper titled "Clinical ethics committees". Said document advocates for the creation of "clinical bioethics committees" in every suitable setting and lays out a set of guidelines aimed at regulationg such committees' function. The recommendations deal primarily with the independence, requirements for counselling, structures, composition, tasks, placement, coordination, requisite competences, regulations. In the opinion's contents there are: a) the need to entrust counselling and training on ethical issues within clinical practice to different committees than those that deal with ethical assessment of scientific trial and experimentation; b) the laying out of all the various functions and related competences required of the ethics committes' members; c) the necessity that all counselling pratices be carried out by each committee as a whole, rather than a single expert member; d) Committee's independece. The authors elaborate on each one of the above mentioned aspects and highlight the importance of INBC's recommendations in order to improve the quality standards of care delivered "to each patient's bed".