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July 18, 2005

The Latest Bulletin on the NHS Offers Few Surprises and Little Comfort

“Why in the 21st century are we still so poor at involving patients in their care?”. So asks Simon Williams, director of policy at the Patients Association, according to a news report by the BBC, in light of the disturbingly low level of NHS patient involvement in their own treatment that is announced by the Healthcare Commission in its annual report on the state of NHS published today.

Indicative of this low level of patient involvement are the following findings of the Healthcare Commission published in its report:

· A third of patients’ diagnostic tests are not explained to them in a way that is understandable to them.

· A fifth of patients left hospital confused as to what their drugs were for.

· Only 22% of coronary bypass surgery patents were told of alternative treatments.

· The UK ranked lowest for patient involvement in their primary care among five countries surveyed.

May I proffer the following answer to Mr Williams’ question?

Britain remains poor at involving patients in their own healthcare because, under the present system of socialised provision, patients lack any genuine consumer power that alone can be provided by their having a genuine choice between providers who are allowed to compete between themselves for custom.

In the absence of genuine patient choice, there will be no competition between providers, or hence any incentive on their part to inform and involve patients fully in their treatment, should it be more costly and inconvenient for them to do so, which undoubtedly it is in a great many cases.

Tentatively, the government is feeling its way to providing greater consumer choice but healthcare providers are likely to howl if the result have the intended effect of exposing defective forms of provision.

Posted by David Conway at July 18, 2005 03:25 PM

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