‘Users should be provided with an improved range of choice in service provision. The expression of that choice needs to be equitable, informed and to provide genuine options in who delivers care, and where and when it is delivered.’1
Under the Labour government the rhetoric of modernisation and reform has disguised a return to the past: first to voluntary (‘foundation’) hospitals, and now to fund-holding (‘practice-based commissioning’). Next stop — the workhouse? The proclamations of choice that now accompany every ministerial speech or policy statement signal the further intrusion of consumerism into health care. But it was the inadequacy of market relations in medicine that led to emergence of a medical profession tied to an ethos of public service.2 The mantra of choice now accompanies …