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Open Public Services White Paper

My Lords, on the face of it, allowing patients a choice as to where they wish their care to be delivered seems a good idea, except that there are several problems. One is the quality of information we have: if that choice is to be based on outcomes, it is pretty poor. The second is that the outcome is not based on one treatment: it is the quality of the journey of care of a patient that delivers the best outcome. For instance, poor outcomes in cancer may well be, and are, related to late referrals of cancer patients. How does a patient know what quality of information they will be given that will allow them to make a choice as to how they wish their care to be provided, based on these outcomes? Another issue is that the best quality might be far away from where the patient can go or have access to. So how would they make that choice? Most importantly, if we are going to do this—and the idea seems good—it should be based on what we have learned from pilots. Have there been any pilots done that will tell us how this will work?