Northerner
Admin (Retired)
- Relationship to Diabetes
- Type 1
GPs should be providing more choice to patients on where they wish to go for their first outpatient appointment, the competition and choice watchdog Monitor has claimed.
Monitor said that the NHS ‘needs to do more’ to let patients know they have a choice in which hospital or clinic they attend, in response to an NHS England survey of 7,000 participants published today that showed that 38% of patients said they had been offered a choice by their GPs.
However, GP leaders said that the reason patients are not offered a choice is usually because there are few outpatient appointments available.
The NHS England survey, which included 2,700 patients who had been recently referred, found that 51% of patients were aware of their right to choose where they attended for outpatient appointments and, where they had been offered a choice, most said they had done so with adequate information (89%) and were able to attend their preferred hospital or clinic (92%).
http://www.pulsetoday.co.uk/commiss...tient-referrals-monitor-says/20007494.article
(free registration required)
Monitor said that the NHS ‘needs to do more’ to let patients know they have a choice in which hospital or clinic they attend, in response to an NHS England survey of 7,000 participants published today that showed that 38% of patients said they had been offered a choice by their GPs.
However, GP leaders said that the reason patients are not offered a choice is usually because there are few outpatient appointments available.
The NHS England survey, which included 2,700 patients who had been recently referred, found that 51% of patients were aware of their right to choose where they attended for outpatient appointments and, where they had been offered a choice, most said they had done so with adequate information (89%) and were able to attend their preferred hospital or clinic (92%).
http://www.pulsetoday.co.uk/commiss...tient-referrals-monitor-says/20007494.article
(free registration required)