Medical innovation bill would allow doctors to use experimental therapies for patients for whom all other treatments have failed

Seriously ill patients who are told there is nothing more doctors can do for them could receive untested medical treatments if a new bill becomes law.

The medical innovation bill aims to beef up legal protection for doctors so they can draw on more experimental therapies for patients for whom all other treatments have failed.

Under the bill, doctors can offer patients untested drugs and other interventions provided they have the support of other doctors, who may be at the same hospital, and approval from the senior official who oversees medical practice at their institution and reports to the General Medical Council.

The bill was brought forward by Lord Saatchi whose wife, Josephine Hart, died from ovarian cancer in 2011. The first version of the bill was restricted to cancer patients, but a revised version, which will be presented to the Lords on Thursday, applies to a broader range of patients that have run out of treatment options.

The bill has received a mixed response from the medical community, with some arguing in favour and others warning that it leaves vulnerable patients at risk from maverick doctors.

Professor Michael Rawlins, president of the Royal Society of Medicine, said he was "broadly in favour" of the revised bill. "There's been a tradition of doing what Saatchi wants to be done in the past and occasionally it's produced some stunning results. But it's become increasingly apparent that the current situation is not good enough and you are increasingly liable to negligence," he told the Guardian.

Should the bill become law, Rawlins said doctors who give untested treatments to patients should publish the outcome, whether it works or not. "If a certain treatment turns out to be useless, everyone needs to know," he said.

But Margaret McCartney, a GP in Glasgow, said there was nothing in the bill to benefit patients or protect them at the end of their lives. "The problem is that it's very hard to distinguish who is a maverick and who is a bona fide science-based doctor."

"The safeguards they suggest are that doctors will discuss the treatment among a multidisciplinary team, but if you work in an alternative medicine sector, your colleagues will have the same approach to the evidence as you do," McCartney said.

The Department of Health held a public consulation on the first version of the bill and plans to publish a report based on the responses later this month. While Lord Saatchi's team claims it has clear public support for the bill, the Department of Health said this was based on responses the Saatchi team received directly, or that had been published online. The Department of Health has not shared its own responses with the Saatchi team.

In their submission to the consultation, the Royal College of Radiologists warned there could be "serious unintended consequences" if the bill were enshrined in law. It cautioned that the bill "risks exposing vulnerable and desperate patients to false hope, futile and potentially harmful (and expensive) treatments."

Around 170 responses sent directly to the Department of Health include some strongly-held opinions that are not addressed in the revised version of the bill, the Guardian understands.

Dominic Nutt, a member of the Saatchi team, said they had received 18,000 responses to the first draft of the bill. "If one of the repsonses we haven't seen comes up with something we haven't thought of, then of course we will take that into consideration," he said. Asked if the bill would allow quacks to exploit vulnerable patients at the end of the lives, Nutt said: "Even if you could get some sort of groupthink going, you still have someone else who needs to approve this, who can say 'hang on'. If you don't have consensus, no judge will let you get away with it."

The government will respond to the bill on its second reading which has yet to scheduled. As it progresses through parliament, ministers, MPs and peers will have the opportunity to amend, oppose or support the bill.

"Innovation is at the heart of modernising the NHS and is essential for improving treatments and finding new cures. We are carefully considering all the responses we received to our consultation on the Medical Innovation Bill and we aim to respond as soon as possible," a DH spokesperson said.