Reconfiguring acute hospitals in England: A side effect of patient choice?

doi:10.1136/bmj.39058.712280.3A

BMJ 2006;333:1271 (16 December), doi:10.1136/bmj.39058.712280.3A

Letters

Reconfiguring acute hospitals in England

A side effect of patient choice?

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

Ham illustrates the tension between the needfor collaboration between hospitals to ensure appropriate locationof specialist services and the opposing need to compete promotedby a pro-market policy agenda which undermines collaboration.¹

However, the editorial does not explore theeffect that the monomaniac promotion of patient choice to theexclusion of any other considerations may have had in fuellingpublic opposition to reconfiguration.

Patients and the general public have repeatedlybeen assured that all aspects of reform in the NHS have beendriven solely by the desire to give them more choice and byimplication better services.

It is no surprise then that they find it difficultto understand why they cannot have an accident and emergencydepartment on their doorstep if they so choose. A recent nationalsurvey suggested that one in three people believed the NHS shouldprovide "all drugs and treatments, no matter what the cost,". . . [Full text of this article]

Ike Anya, specialist registrar in public health medicine

¹ Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, University College London WC1E 6BT ikeanya@doctors.org.uk