Case study

Department of Health 

Piloting Patient Choice in London

Choice is central to the UK Government’s vision for the National Health Service (NHS), which is about developing a service that remains open to all, but personalised around the needs of individual patients. For the first time NHS patients will not only be allowed to choose where they have their treatment, but also be free to choose the time and date of their appointments. The London Patient Choice Project (LPCP) is one of the first and largest pilot schemes set up by the Department of Health to test the concept of patient choice in the NHS.

Early efforts were focused on the development of the business case to secure funding from the Treasury for this high-profile Government project. However, it soon became apparent that little progress was being made in transforming the vision of Patient Choice into an operational reality. Successful delivery was at risk.

This was a significant system reform project for the NHS involving multiple stakeholders and the timescales for delivery were very tight. So PA Consulting Group was appointed to support the new Project Director in establishing the programme management arrangements and designing and implementing the operational processes required to support offering Choice to patients.

Despite initial concerns over timescales, PA helped LPCP to go live successfully and as planned for Opthalmology patients in October 2002 -  little more than six months from start to finish. The project subsequently went live for General Surgery, ENT and Orthopaedics patients in March 2003. Since then the lessons learnt by the NHS in London have been used as the basis for developing guidance on implementing Patient Choice nationally.