Minister pledges greater patient choice

The government has set out plans to increase patient choice in healthcare.

Health services minister Ben Bradshaw on Thursday published plans to give GPs incentives to take on new patients.

The primary and community care strategy would enable patients to register for GPs online and to create personalised care programmes for people with long-term conditions.

Under the measures, people will be able to access their record on the internet and more information about the quality of services will be made available on the NHS Choices website.

There will also be early interventions for those considered most at risk of ill health, as well as plans to give "high performing" GPs more freedom to develop new services for their patients.

The announcement builds on Lord Darzi's review of the NHS, which outlined measures to improve standards and give patients more choice in their treatments.

Health services minister Ben Bradshaw said: "People tell us that they want to be more involved in decisions about their health care and that primary and community care should be more individual, convenient and joined up.

"Change will only come from listening more closely to what users tell us, responding to that and giving them more choice and say over their health care.

"Our vision for primary care will protect the highly popular and effective system of registering with a local GP, but give family doctors a stronger role in working with other clinicians, local authorities and other organisations to provide the right services, in the right place and at the right time to meet individual needs.

"All of this will only happen by unlocking the talents and professionalism of NHS staff working in primary care, giving them greater freedoms to provide the services their patients want and more control over how they do it, whilst equipping them with the necessary skills."

However, in an earlier interview, Bradshaw accused GPs of operating "gentlemen's agreements" in which they promised not to take on other doctors' patients.

"There is no doubt there are some areas where gentleman's agreements operate that mitigate against lists being open to new patients and therefore work against real patient choice," he told the BBC News website.