Hewitt promises more say for NHS patients

21 Jul 05
Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt has pledged to continue the market reforms in the NHS by opening further sectors to private sector competition and increasing patient 'voice' within the system.

22 July 2005

Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt has pledged to continue the market reforms in the NHS by opening further sectors to private sector competition and increasing patient 'voice' within the system.

'When we ask patients what they want from their health service, they tell us they want to be given a greater say over their treatment and they want to be treated with dignity and respect,' Hewitt told a Fabian Society gathering on July 20.

Yet the Healthcare Commission annual review, The state of healthcare 2005, published two days previously, revealed that the NHS still has 'some way to go' before it fulfils Hewitt's pledge to provide a 'patient-led' service.

Commission chief executive Anna Walker said: 'One thing that comes through our patient surveys very starkly is that once people have made their choice and they're in the system, they're simply not getting the information they need to take control of their own care.

'They need more information on treatment options, medication and, crucially, more information on aftercare – advice on how to live more healthily.'

Walker added that information for stroke and coronary heart disease patients was particularly lacking.

The report was also critical of the fragmentation of services within the NHS. Walker said: 'The patient has a problem; he doesn't care whether what he is doing is seeing a doctor in a PCT, or a hospital, or somewhere else in the community for another form of service. There needs to be a consistent thread through the provision of that service.'

A spokeswoman from the NHS Alliance agreed, and said that while individual services and elements within the NHS may score well in audits, the costs of moving patients around different services and providers were often wasteful.

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