GPs to assist patients in choosing the best hospital

As part of a drive towards an ‘honest’ NHS, health secretary Jeremy Hunt recently announced that each time a patient is referred to a hospital for treatment, their GP will be required to inform them on average waiting times. Patients will also be provided with data about the quality of their local hospital.

The minister has launched a ‘reformation’ in the transparency of the health service, adding that he intended to make people in Britain the ‘most powerful patients in the world’.

Part of the drive will also include information being published on avoidable deaths that have occurred at local hospitals for the first time, in order to enable patients to make a more informed choice on where they want their treatment to take place.

In a bid to put an end to the 10,000 avoidable deaths each year in hospitals across England, each member of staff will also be encouraged to report on evidence of poor care.

Mr Hunt affirmed that he would not allow doctors to obstruct his 25 year vision for change, saying “This is my offer to the NHS today : more transparency in return for fewer targets.”

From 2016, patients will have the option to choose their treating hospital.

“All GPs will be asked to tell patients not just which hospitals they can be referred to, but the relevant Care Quality Commission rating and waiting time as well” Mr Hunt said.

“Patients will for the first time be able to make a truly informed choice.”

He went on to say that, as he attempts to extend consultant working hours to weekends, he would not allow the British Medical Association to be a ‘roadblock to reform’.

Mark Porter, chairman of the BMA, said “If the health secretary really wants to put patient care first and foremost, then he should work with those who spend each day doing just that as well as putting in place the proper funding for emergency care, rather than sniping from the sidelines.”

Professor Jane Dacre, president of the Royal College of Physicians, said “The RCP believes patients deserve the same standard of urgent care at night and weekends as they would receive during normal working hours.”

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Posted by Tony May, Partner/head of Clinical Negligence Department, Chadwick Lawrence LLP (tonymay@chadlaw.co.uk ), Medical negligence lawyers and clinical negligence solicitors in Huddersfield, Leeds, Wakefield and Halifax, West Yorkshire.

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