Good ideas never die. The Patient's Passport is one such. Even the EU is convinced of its merits, with a new directive that will entitle EU citizens to cross borders in search of the best treatment, a plan that was first flagged up in December. Just like the Patient's Passport proposal that would entitle a patient to go to whatever provider they wished, whether in or without the NHS, taking the funding with them.
But that's not the only sign. The new consensus that NHS patients should be allowed to remain in the NHS whilst using insurance or private means to top up their drug regime by buying cancer drugs that the NHS will not fund. This surely favours wealthier people and enables them to opt out of the universality of the NHS when it suits them - precisely the argument that was used against the Patient Passport.
Then last week, launching the Conservative's new green paper, David Cameron said this:
"Patient choice is essential and we'll make it actually work - we’ll let patients choose any provider that meets NHS standards at (sic) delivers at NHS costs."
Not, note, any NHS provider.
And in social care we are seeing a move towards personalised payments and budgets.
Here's the original proposal for the patient's passport. How is this different in principle?
It doesn't matter what you call it, it's what it does. If "Patient's Passport" or "voucher" is too XXX-rated, that's fine by me. This is about putting the patient in the driving seat, and enabling people, rather than bureaucracies, to choose their own priorities once a standard threshhold of care has been put in place.
