NHS patients are embracing Free Choice
The introduction of Free Choice in April 2008 marked a tipping
point for NHS provision. A mutually beneficial partnership with the
independent sector has been evolving for many years, and had
already seen developments such as Independent Sector Treatment
Centres (ISTCs). But it is Free Choice that could make the most
significant impact on secondary care.
Since April, over four million NHS patients needing elective
procedures have been able to choose any hospital in England meeting
NHS standards and tariff. These include a number of independent
facilities, and the Department of Health predicts that the sector
could treat over one million ‘Free Choice patients’ every year.
Certainly at Ramsay we have experienced a significant increase
in NHS patients since the introduction of Free Choice – our acute
hospitals treated almost three times more NHS patients in the
second quarter of 2008 than quarter two of last year.
Our experience is that patients welcome Choice for a number of
reasons. Sometimes they are clinical – certainly recent media
stories have inspired patients to seek facilities with low
infection rates. Choice is also welcomed due to personal
circumstances – such as a patient of ours who runs a small
business, and chose to travel for a shorter wait, to minimise the
impact on trade. It is evident that Choice can help NHS patients
better fit hospital treatment with their lifestyles.
Treating NHS patients is not new to Ramsay - we opened our first
ISTC in 2005 and our eleventh this summer. By proving themselves in
clinical, efficiency and patient care terms, our ISTCs have become
part of the NHS landscape in many communities, and wider-reaching
where possible, for example by providing junior doctor and nurse
training.
I believe that all Choice providers will be seen as part of the
NHS landscape in time. Ramsay’s experience means we arealready
proud to be part of today’s NHS. And our sector is becoming
increasingly recognised as such - in his NHS Next Stage Review
interim report, Lord Darzi confirmed that independent providers
have “helped extend choice, add capacity and spur innovation. They
have increasingly become a fixture of NHS provision.”
The work of Lord Darzi and others will reap benefits for all
parties – above all, for NHS patients, who could soon have Choice
cemented as a legal right under the NHS Constitution. The DoH
continues to ‘level the playing field’ for providers, through
guidance and frameworks, and soon through the independent
Cooperation & Competition Panel, to ensure fair commissioning.
Quite rightly, while mechanisms to ensure fair Choice are created
centrally, local healthcare decisions are increasingly devolved to
the bodies best placed to make them – local Primary Care
Trusts.
I feel there is still some way to go to make Choice an integral
part of today’s NHS, but in the first six months of Free Choice,
the patient numbers, and the feedback we have received from NHS
patients at Ramsay, really speak for themselves.