Patients need more than healthcare choice, says Which?

The government’s policy of extending choice in healthcare is failing to understand what patients really want, a consumer watchdog has warned.

A report, part of Which?’s research into key areas affecting consumers, found that the public wanted good local healthcare services, flexible to the needs of those using them.

The report found that 85% of respondents wanted access to a good local GP, rather than a choice of GPs, while 89% rated a good local hospital as more important than a choice of hospitals.

Seventy-nine per cent of respondents also thought that patients should be able to choose a convenient appointment time.

The Which? report also claimed that people were unaware of the choices available and felt “ill-equipped” or lacked confidence to make choices about the clinical side of their treatment.

Which? said that a more sophisticated approach was needed to ensure that “increased choice does not create more problems than it solves.”

Frances Blunden, author of the report and principal policy adviser to Which?: “Increased patient choice is not the answer to all the problems of the NHS. It will not automatically improve standards or ensure that people get the sort of care they need, when they need it.

“The government is steaming ahead with choice without many of the requirements being in place that are needed to make choice work for consumers, both as individual patients and as a whole. Without these, choice may pose significant threats to the quality of care patients receive from the NHS, particularly those who are most vulnerable or who have complex health needs.

“Better information and support is needed; the regulatory framework for professionals and services must be adapted to the new healthcare environment and a more sophisticated approach in funding individual patient choices is vital. And not least patients should be given the sorts of choices they want to make.”

A Department of Health spokesperson told the BBC that patient choice would provide hospitals with the incentive to respond to patients’ needs and provide the services they require.

(KMcA/SP)