Approach
This research project examined the implementation of patient choice policy and its impact on the quality of services in the NHS. It aimed to answer the following questions:
- How do patients experience choice?
- What factors are important to patients when choosing between health care providers in practice?
- How do GPs support choice?
- What is the response of providers to choice?
Four local health economies were selected as case study sites. In each site, there were a number of components to the research:
- Interviews with senior staff in NHS trusts and one independent sector provider to understand how their organisations are responding to NHS patients having a choice.
- Interviews with patients about their experience about referral and choice. We published findings from 18 scoping interviews with patients in a paper in the British Journal of Healthcare Management.
- A survey of patients referred to hospital to understand whether and how they chose a hospital for treatment, and explore how they would choose a hospital in hypothetical situations (using a discrete-choice-experiment methodology).
- Interviews with GPs to understand whether and how they offer patients a choice of provider and what support they provide to aid that choice.
