Press Release below - the English Minister of Health Alan Milburn provides info on scheme to provide greater choice to patients awaiting elective heart surgery

See extending choice document available at http://www.doh.gov.uk/extendingchoice/ for more on this principle

David McDaid

LSE Health and Social Care

2nd October DoH Press Release reference 2002/0404

Health Secretary Alan Milburn today unveiled the next steps in ensuring that thousands more NHS patients will be able to exercise choice over where and when they have operations for elective surgery.


On 1 July almost 2000 heart patients across the country who were waiting six months for an operation at their local hospital became eligible to choose be treated elsewhere in the NHS or in the private sector - with nearly 400 patients treated so far.


As part of a pilot from today hundreds of patients in London who have been waiting for more than six months for cataract surgery will benefit from being able to choose to have their treatment at a different hospital to cut the waiting time for treatment. By next spring, others in the capital waiting for orthopaedic operations, ear, nose and throat treatment, general surgery and other specialties will be able to exercise a similar choice. The extension of patient choice follows the early success of the initiative launched in July for NHS heart surgery patients.

Mr Milburn said: 

"If we want a health service which puts patients first, then patients have got to have more power. And 
that means they've got to have some choice. So if their local NHS hospital cannot offer them a shorter waiting time but another hospital can they can decide to choose. 

"The values of the NHS are about providing healthcare according to need, not ability to pay. So it's time to make choice available on the NHS. So that we widen opportunity as we build a fairer society.

"We've started with a pilot for NHS patients needing heart operations and already hundreds of patients have been able to get faster treatment by choosing a different hospital. From today another pilot will mean that patients in London who've waited longest for an eye operation will be able to choose a hospital where the operation can be done more quickly. 

"Subject to evaluation and assuming these pilots continue progressing successfully, choice will be extended to other parts of the country in order that the Government can fulfill its commitment to give patients more choice:
        "By the end of 2005 every hospital appointment will be booked for the convenience of the patient, making it easier for patients and their GP to choose the hospital and consultant that best suits their needs. "

"We've got to get this right. It will be introduced steadily and carefully, but it will be a revolution. No longer will the hospitals choose the patients. The patients will choose the hospitals. We will have an NHS where patients no longer have to opt out but can opt to stay in." 

In order to help the NHS build on the success of the heart choice scheme Mr Milburn also announced today that an extra £10 million is to be pumped into areas across the country with the highest levels of coronary heart disease. This is on top of the extra £100 million already invested in heart surgery this year and aims to help ensure rapid progress in reducing waiting times and extending patient choice.

New planning guidance issued to the NHS today also sets out that instead of achieving a maximum three months wait for a heart operation by 2008, the target date to reach this maximum wait will now be March 2005.

Notes to Editors

1. As part of the Heart Choice scheme patients who have been waiting for six months for a heart operation have - since July 2002 - been offered the choice of faster treatment at another hospital, in either the NHS or the independent sector. The Department of Health undertook a tender process for surgical capacity in the private sector both in the UK and abroad. Following an initial assessment for clinical quality, the proposals that remained were analysed in terms of patient experience, price, convenience of location and impact on the NHS. A shortlist of UK providers has been placed on the Department's website. Most of the shortlisted overseas providers have now been assessed and patients will soon be offered the option of overseas treatment in addition to their current choices. For further information visit: <http://www.doh.gov.uk/extendingchoice/>

2. To help patients make their choice each patient will see an independent Patient Care Adviser (PCA). Every heart surgery centre in England has appointed at least one PCA. They are equipped with the clinical knowledge they need to support patients in their choices, and guide them through the system. PCAs are a single contact point for patients and their families, before, during and after treatment. Patients always have the option to stay and be treated where they are. Patients who decide not to go to another hospital for treatment continue to benefit from the role of the PCA who should be able to tell them how long they will have to wait if they do opt to stay. It is the patient's choice. 
3. Early figures suggest that the Choice initiative is accelerating the progress that has been made to reduce waiting times:

- In June 2001, 1926 patients had been waiting more than nine months for a heart operation; by
June, this figure was down to 843. 

- Further reductions in numbers waiting over nine months have been seen since the start of the Choice initiative: provisional data shows that in July, this was down to 751, and the figures for August continued this progress, with a total of 643 patients waiting over nine months for their operation. 

4. The new cardiac target - to achieve a maximum three month wait for heart surgery by March 2005, or sooner if possible - is set out in 'Improvement, Expansion and Reform' published by the Department of Health today and available on the Department of Health website - www.doh.gov.uk. The previous target that no-one should wait more that 12 months for surgery was achieved in April 2002.