Patient centred comes at a price

doi:10.1136/bmj.b861

Published 3 March 2009, doi:10.1136/bmj.b861
Cite this as: BMJ 2009;338:b861

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Patient pathway improvements

Patient centred comes at a price

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

The potential cost of more rapid access to services should notbe overlooked.¹

Queueing models show how rapidly costs rise with the shorteningof the queue. To see a dermatologist in two days means havinga lot more dermatologists who either cost more or get paid less.Either way they have to be less busy to make sure there willalways be free slots at short notice. In addition, the resultof greater convenience for all would mean many more people workingunsocial hours, or less convenience for many.

Part of the issue here is that the patient is depicted as ahigh powered executive whose work is so important that onlya cancer scare can displace it.¹ How many of us really begrudgeour colleagues, our postman, our builder time off to go to seea doctor? Perhaps we also need to put the importance of workin proportion . . . [Full text of this article]

Peter A West, senior research associate¹

¹ York Health Economics Consortium, University of York, York YO10 5NH

paw11@york.ac.uk

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