NHS trusts and organisations that provide NHS funded health care will be allowed to advertise their services as part of a government drive to improve patient choice, the health minister Ben Bradshaw has said. The announcement came at the launch of a code of practice for services funded by the NHS.
From this April GPs will be able to refer patients to NHS hospitals and some independent sector treatment centres anywhere in England for routine elective treatment.
The government hopes that by allowing providers to promote their services, patients will be empowered “to have a real say in their treatment” and that publication of information on the quality of services will “provide an incentive for improvement.”
Healthcare providers will be able to compete for business by advertising results such as their waiting times, surgical outcomes, and rates of methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus. Testimonials and endorsements from celebrities, medical experts, and patients will also be allowed if they have had direct experience and are not paid to give them.
Hospitals will be permitted to get sponsorship from companies as long as it does not undermine the “NHS brand” and the companies are not associated with gambling, alcohol, tobacco, weight control, or politics.
Comparative claims will be allowed in the “interests of vigorous competition and public information,” prompting concerns that hospitals will be pitted against each other, diverting money away from patient care and into the coffers of advertising agencies. Critics are also concerned that rather than improve the quality of information, advertising might reduce it, as has happened in other countries.
According to the code, statistics “should be based on the most recently available data.” But Jonathan Fielden, chairman of the BMA’s Consultants Committee, said, “We still have a long way to go in collecting and having access to accurate, reliable, and meaningful data that enable patients, working with their doctors, to make full knowledgeable choices about their treatment.”
Bruce Keogh, the NHS medical director, admitted that more work was needed to develop clinical indicators but said that the government was trying to improve the quality of data by consolidating information already in the NHS and trying to identify “hard nosed measures” of quality.
Advertisements will be subject to the Advertising Standards Authority’s codes. Adherence to the code will be enforced by primary care trusts and overseen by strategic health authorities. If disputes over the content of the adverts cannot be resolved at local level, strategic health authorities will refer the offender to the Advertising Standards Authority or the new Cooperation and Competition Panel, which is expected to be running by October 2008.
Mr Bradshaw says that the government will start a £600 000 advertising campaign in local newspapers and on radio to promote the principle of patient choice. The government hopes pressure from patients will encourage GPs to offer a broader range of choice. But Professor Keogh admitted that changing the historical patterns of GPs’ referral behaviour, in which they tend to refer to consultants they know, would not be easy.