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Patient choice
Patient Choice is a Department of Health initiative to give you more choice about when, where and how your healthcare needs are met. It is based on the results of a national patient consultation on Choice, Responsiveness and Equity in the NHS, carried out in late 2003 by the Department of Health.
This means offering you a choice of treatment at alternative hospitals, improving the flexibility of public services, and making the NHS more patient-centred. The NHS is to work in a more open way, to make sure that you are aware of the services available to you.
There will be more services in the community, and staff will be able to work in areas that they have not traditionally been involved in; for example GPs with Special Interests (GpwSI) will be able to perform certain minor procedures that were previously only carried out in hospital. Other plans include:
- getting repeat prescriptions from pharmacists without having to go back to your GP each time;
- more over-the-counter (non-prescription) medicines;
- a fully electronic system for booking appointments.
Pilot programs were carried out in 2002-2003 to give more options to those who required heart and cataract surgery. The program is being introduced across the country in an ongoing process, and it is being extended to different types of surgery and procedures.
Choice benefits healthcare service users because they are more involved and have more control over their treatment. It will mean that:
- healthcare reflects patient’s priorities,
- treatment is faster,
- there is more certainty over the time patients will be treated,
- there will be less variation in standards of care, and
- all patients will have equal opportunity to choose.
