Patients will be encouraged to use the NHS online service, nhs.uk, to gather information about NHS hospitals when they are making choices about treatment.
The NHS Information Authority announced this week that the online service had been chosen by the Department of Health as the channel for giving patients the information they need to select a hospital. Health secretary, John Reid, has laid great emphasis on the Patient Choice initiative since he came into office in June and the government has set a target for offering all patients in England a choice of four or five hospitals for their first outpatient appointment by December 2005.
Announcing the new £64.5m contract for e-booking last week Dr Reid said he wanted to give ordinary people the opportunity exercise the kind of choice a minority of privately insured patients had enjoyed for decades.
E-Booking Presented as a Step Towards Patient-Centred NHS
A conference will be held on 5 November in Birmingham to launch nhs.uk as the website for Patient Choice. Patients who do not have access to the Internet will be encouraged to access the same information via the NHS Direct telephone service.
Information ranging from waiting times to parking facilities will be covered and a consultation round over the coming months will seek views from health professionals and patients about other material to be added to make it easier for patients and GPs to choose a hospital and consultant.
Judy Aldred, nhs.uk programme manager, said: “The site is already delivering a lot of the intelligence needed to make the patient choice of hospital work, in a way that people can understand, and we can now expand on this.”