Press release: NHS Partners Network responds to patient choice survey
19 Oct 2007
Commenting on the report, Graham Kendall, acting general manager of the NHS Partners Network, said:
"The figures in this survey make for disappointing reading. NHS Partners Network members have been working hard to give NHS patients a genuine choice in their provider of care so it is dispiriting to see the number of patients offered choice going down.
"Giving patients the right to choose where they are treated is a very powerful method of driving improvement across the system on the issues that matter to patients - from cleanliness and customer care to car parking. It is therefore worrying that this message is not getting through.
"In order to deliver the benefits of choice throughout the system, clear direction from the top is needed. We need to see a commitment from Ministers to ensure the patients' right to choose their provider is honoured. This is fundamental to personalised care and a reinvigorated choice agenda will drive wider improvement for all NHS patients."
Notes for editors
NHS Partners Network is an alliance of independent - both commercial and not-for-profit healthcare providers commissioned by the NHS to provide elective and diagnostic care to NHS patients free at the point of delivery. It was established in 2005 and became part of the NHS Confederation in June 2007.
Members of NHS Partners Network: Alliance Medical, Spire Healthcare, Capio, Centres for Clinical Excellence, Clinicenta, Care UK/Mercury Health, Nations, Netcare UK, Nuffield Hospitals, Partnership Health Group and UK Specialist Hospitals.
The NHS Confederation represents more than 95% of the organisations that make up the NHS. Its members include the majority of NHS acute trusts, ambulance trusts, foundation trusts, mental health trusts, primary care trusts, special health authorities and strategic health authorities in England; trusts and local health boards in Wales; and health and social service trusts and boards in Northern Ireland.
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