Oxford LibGuides: Medical law & ethics: Legislation

Finding UK legislation

Holders of an Oxford SSO should use a subscription database as their source for UK (or English & Welsh) legislation

Legislation.gov is free access to all BUT cannot be relied upon to provide a current, amended/consolidated, text of legislation. It is, however, a good source of pdfs of the text of an act as it was originally passed by parliament.

Lexis+ UK
This resource requires you to log in with your Oxford SSO again at the homepage.Includes Halsbury’s Statutes of England and Wales which gathers together statutes relating to Medical Services, Health and Care Regulation in particular volumes
Alternative names:Lexis ; LexisLibrary ; Lexis Library ; Lexis International

Lexis+ includes extensive primary and secondary legal materials from the UK, EU, USA and many other jurisdictions. It is the only online source for the full text of the All England Law Reports and Halsbury’s Laws. International content can be accessed by following the “International” link on the home page. UK legal news and newspapers are also included
Westlaw Edge UK
Alternative name: West Law UK ; Westlaw UK

Westlaw is a large database of UK, US and international legal materials including cases, legislation and journal articles.
Coverage:
•UK statutes, statutory instruments and law reports
•England and Wales law reports
•US federal and state legislation and law reports
•Australian federal and state legislation and law reports
•Canadian federal and state legislation and law reports
•Hong Kong SAR law reports and laws
•European Union legislation and law reports
•UK and US law journals and texts
•Common Law Library and over 200 books published by Sweet & Maxwell (Thomson Reuters)
Because of licencing restrictions this database is not available to "Walk-in" users of the library.

Legislation.gov.uk
Open access. Official site Use the drop down menu TYPE to limit search to public general acts or statutory instruments or browse by year etc. Excellent for original, historic version (text of act as originally promulgated) and Explanatory Notes for more recent legislation. Pay attention to the current status which is given for each act. More has further details of coverage
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All primary legislation from 1988
All secondary legislation from 1987, including UK Statutory Instruments, Scottish Statutory Instruments and Northern Ireland Statutory Rules. In addition we hold a selection of secondary legislation from 1948-1986, and selected pre-1948 Statutory Rules and Orders
Legislation originating from the EU as set out in Schedule 5 to the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 (c. 16) along with corrigenda (correction slips for EU legislation) and EU Directives published up to the end of the EU Exit Implementation Period at 11:00 p.m. on 31 December 2020 ("IP completion day").
Most types of primary legislation (e.g. Acts, Measures, N.I. Orders in Council) are held in 'revised' form, as well as selected secondary legislation, and legislation originating from the EU:

Public General Acts of the United Kingdom Parliament (1801 to date)
Acts of the Parliament of Great Britain (1707 – 1800)
Acts of the English Parliament (1267 – 1706)
Acts of the Old Scottish Parliament (1424 – 1707)
Acts of the Scottish Parliament (1999 to date)
Acts of Senedd Cyrmu (2020 to date)
Acts of the National Assembly for Wales (2012 to 2020)
Measures of the National Assembly for Wales (2008 – 2011)
Acts of the Irish Parliament (1495 – 1800)
Acts of the Parliament of Northern Ireland (1921 – 1972)
Measures of the Northern Ireland Assembly (1974)
Orders in Council made under the Northern Ireland Acts (1972 to date) (effectively the primary legislation for Northern Ireland under direct rule, though in the form of Statutory Instruments)
Acts of the Northern Ireland Assembly (2000 – 2002 and 2007 to date)
Church of England Measures (1920 to date)
UK Statutory Instruments (2018 to date)
Scottish Statutory Instruments (2018 to date)
Welsh Statutory Instruments (2018 to date)
Statutory Rules of Northern Ireland (2018 to date)
European Regulations (1958 to 31 December 2020)
European Decisions (1953 to 31 December 2020)
European Directives (1959 to 31 December 2020)

In print

General Public Acts and Measures
Call Number: Cw UK 10 on Level 1
This is the official printed copy of statutes produced by the Stationary Office. These are arranged by year and are not amended.

Halsbury's Statutes
Call Number: KZ on Level 2
Multi - volume work arranged by broad subject area. Has statutes as amended and annotated with a looseleaf updating service.

Current Law Statutes annotated
Call Number: KZ on Level 2
From 1947 onwards. Arranged by year. Contains statutes as originally enacted with annotations.

Halsbury's Statutory Instruments
Call Number: KZ on Level 2
Arranged by broad subject these have summaries of statutory intruments with some major instruments being reprinted in full.

Legislation from other jurisdictions

One of the Law Bod's other guides may be able to help!

Law Bod guides to national jurisdictions