Patient’s awareness of treatment choices stalls

The latest national patient choice survey shows little growth in awareness of the government’s flagship policy on choice with less than one in two patients recalling being offered a choice of hospital.

The Department of Health has published results from its March 2008 survey this week alongside provisional results for the survey in May 2008. They showed that 47% of patients recalled being offered a choice of hospital in March (up from 46% in January) but with a two percentage point fall to 45% in May.

The figures are published as use of Choose and Book appears to have stalled at 50% and follows a study published last month http://www.ehiprimarycare.com/News/4029/choose_and_book_fails_to_offer_choice which found that 66% of those referred via Choose and Book were not given a choice of date for their outpatient appointment and 86% reported being given a choice of fewer than four hospitals.

The 12th national patient choice, conducted by Ipsos MORI on behalf of the DH, found that in March 2008 43% of patients were aware before they visited their GP that they had a choice of appointment, the same as in January 2008 although up from 29% in the first survey conducted in May and June 2006 survey.

The best performing strategic health authorities (SHA) on choice were East Midlands, North West and North East SHAS where more than 50% of patients recalled being offered choice and the worst performing SHAs were South East Coast and East of England SHA. In 11 out of 150 PCTs more than 60% of patients were offered choice compared with 18 PCTs in January. In three PCTs less than 30% of patients remembered being offered a choice.

More than a third of patients (37%) booked their appointment after their GP sent a letter to their hospital with 30% telephoning an appointments line. One in five appointments (20%) were booked on screen by GP practices and 4% used the internet.

Of those who were aware of their right to choice 63% remembered being offered a choice of hospital whereas 36% of those not aware of choice recalled being offered it.
The report, which gives the results of around 109,000 responses to the survey, found that 90% of patients offered choice were able to go the hospital they wanted compared with 46% of patients who did not recall being offered a choice.

Just over half the patients who were offered choice (52%) said they used their GP as a source of information to choose their hospital with a third (33%) using their own experience or that of family and friends.. A booklet about choice was used by 9% and 5% used the NHS Choices website.

Provisional figures for May show little or no improvement on the March figures with slightly less patients remembering being offered a choice of hospital (45%). A total of 45% aware of their right to choice and 66% were able to go to the hospital they wanted.