"Patient choice" is just a bit of spin. It is clear from the many comments here that it is a fiction: the patient is not a sovereign consumer.
In practice, patients will be looking to their health or care professional to make the choice for them. This, presumably, underpins the idea of delegating budgets to GP's and delegating commissioning to consortia of practices.
But even professionals can only make an informed choice if they have the relevant information. The NHS, as it stands, does not emit sufficient (true) information. In fact, despite many tiers of management, it does not have adequate internal information flows to associate costs with value-added, at a level of granularity adequate to identify best practices or opportunities for improvement.
In practice, patients will be looking to their health or care professional to make the choice for them. This, presumably, underpins the idea of delegating budgets to GP's and delegating commissioning to consortia of practices.
But even professionals can only make an informed choice if they have the relevant information. The NHS, as it stands, does not emit sufficient (true) information. In fact, despite many tiers of management, it does not have adequate internal information flows to associate costs with value-added, at a level of granularity adequate to identify best practices or opportunities for improvement.
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