Patients get four choices for NHS treatments: Choose and book will hinder development of good outpatient services

doi:10.1136/bmj.332.7534.180-a

BMJ 2006;332:180 (21 January), doi:10.1136/bmj.332.7534.180-a

Letter

Patients get four choices for NHS treatments

Choose and book will hinder development of good outpatient services

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Editor—Is it not time that as a profession we state unequivocallythat we are opposed to having choose and book imposed on us?¹There are also cogent reasons for resistance by the hospitalsector, principally that choose and book will hinder the developmentof good outpatient services.

Specialist "one stop clinics" have been one of the outstandingimprovements of hospital outpatient services in the past decade.They have been developed in many specialties (for example, prostrate,endoscopy, breast), bringing obvious benefits to patients' care,as well as improving clinic efficiency. They could be expandedto other disciplines, but this will be much more difficult withchoose and book. Having instant access to diagnostic facilitiessuch as fine needle aspiration cytology is difficult to organiseand requires a substantial and potentially expensive time commitmentfrom service sector departments and their staff, particularlyconsultants.

To have such facilities available every time a . . . [Full text of this article]

Jeremy Wood, consultant breast surgeon

London N10 2BS jeremy.wood@blueyonder.co.uk