Is an NHS designed around the patient bad for your health?

[摘要] Concern has been expressed that the current patient choice agenda that equates health-seeking behaviour with any other form of consumerism may not be in the best interests of the NHS.1,2 An alternative viewpoint sees the role of doctor in a partnership with the patient, based not on power or patient choice but one of mutual respect. In this paper I examine the role of patient and healthcare professional from the perspective of the three basic organisational frameworks of hierarchies, markets and networks. It is concluded that the objective of any service reconfiguration should not be to correct the asymmetries between patient and doctor through market or bureaucratic means, but to build upon their differences in networks of trusting relationships and cultural norms that facilitate coordinated action. This approach will provide the most effective and responsive framework to the challenges that lie ahead.

[学科分类] 卫生学