How patient choice can help to reduce NHS waiting times

On Sunday 8^th of December, “John Pienaar with Times Radio Drive” featured an in-depth conversation about Patient Choice and the electronic referral system. This came on the back of a staggering new statistic from the NHS showing that “in October, there were a record 7.2 million people waiting to start routine treatments” meaning that “There are now 400,000 People waiting longer than a year”.

David Hanau, chief executive of independent healthcare, healthcare providers, spoke in the episode about how patient choice can be used as a solution for this, saying

“We’ve got a massive crisis in terms of NHS capacity constraint and demand pressures, we need to throw the kitchen sink at and part of that is unapologetically using the private sector to help make a contribution. It won't be a silver bullet, but it really can help get waiting times down. We try and do that through patient choice”.

Steve Brian, Conservative MP Chair of the Health select committee at Westminster,  followed up and had this to say on the matter

“I mean, let's be honest, we talked about patient choice, I'll come on to that. The government don't have much choice! There are 7.2 million people on the waiting list. So you know, we need to use capacity. Dave is absolutely right, there is patient choice. And, you know, when you see your GP and you are referred to that orthopaedic operation, the hip or the knee, or mammalogy, you know, the cataract whatever, you have the absolute right to say, what are my options instead of just waiting for the local NHS hospital? And I would urge people to do that.”

One Health allows you to use your patient choice legal right to find treatment outside of the NHS. Simply ask your GP to refer you to One Health or use our patient referral form.