Editor—I am delighted that this edition of the BMJ focuses on the issues of patient and public participation in health care. This government is strongly committed to the principles of partnership between the NHS, its patients, their carers, and the public. Its policies will be clearly stated this month in a new document Patient and Public Involvement in the New NHS.
This new document sets out the action which the NHS Executive is taking to ensure that patient partnership is central to its work, and what the government expects the NHS and other bodies to do to make working in partnership a reality. It builds on the well established themes of the patient partnership strategy to:
Promote patients’ participation in their own care as active partners with professionals
Enable patients to become informed about their treatment and care and to make informed decisions and choices about it if they wish
Involve patients and carers in improving service quality, and
Involve the public as citizens in health and health service decision making processes.1
The document will be followed up in the autumn by publication of plans for a new NHS charter, which will have effective partnership working as a key theme.
People’s expectations of the NHS are changing. It is now no longer enough for clinicians to decide which course of treatment is best for patients and provide care accordingly. Increasingly, patients want to know more about their illness or condition and the different treatment options available so that they can make informed choices about their own care.
These principles of involving patients as individuals and citizens are important not just from the point of view of openness and accountability. Working effectively in partnership has major potential benefits for health and health care, including:
Reductions in health inequality
Better outcomes of individual care and better health for the population
Better quality and more locally responsive services
Greater local ownership of health services
A better understanding by all concerned of why and how local services need to be changed and developed.
The government wants to see patient partnership become integral to the work of every part of the NHS—health authorities, NHS trusts, primary care groups and trusts, and general practices—and also within the NHS Executive centrally. Responding positively to this ambition and involving patients as equal partners are undoubtedly key challenges facing the professions and indeed the NHS as a whole as we move into the new millennium.
References
- 1.NHS Executive. Patient partnership: building a collaborative strategy. Leeds: NHS Executive; 1996. [Google Scholar]