Understanding Patients’ Choices at the Point of Referral

Peter Burge, Nancy Devlin, John Appleby, Federico Gallo, Edward Nason, Tom Ling

ResearchPublished May 25, 2006

The UK Department of Health is implementing a new system for GP specialist referrals, which will give NHS patients a choice of the hospital to which they will be referred. As of January 1st 2006, patients are being offered a choice of around five hospitals, pre-selected by their local primary care trust (PCT). By 2008, it is planned that all patients requiring a first outpatient attendance will have the choice of any NHS hospital (or private sector hospital contracting with the NHS) in England. This report details research undertaken jointly by RAND Europe, City University and the Kings Fund to investigate which factors are likely to drive patients’ choices at the point of referral. The research team used stated preference discrete choice experiments to explore the priorities of patients, from which they estimated discrete choice models. These provide some insights not only into the types of information patients require, but also the value patients place on specific aspects of hospitals’ performance and, more generally, their characteristics. The modelling results inform policy makers of the potential benefits of different ways of structuring and informing patients’ choices.

Topics

Document Details

Citation

Chicago Manual of Style

Burge, Peter, Nancy Devlin, John Appleby, Federico Gallo, Edward Nason, and Tom Ling, Understanding Patients’ Choices at the Point of Referral. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2006. https://www.rand.org/pubs/technical_reports/TR359.html.
BibTeX RIS

Research conducted by

The research described in this report was prepared for the UK Department of Health and was conducted by RAND Europe.

This publication is part of the RAND technical report series. RAND technical reports, products of RAND from 2003 to 2011, presented research findings on a topic limited in scope or intended for a narrow audience; discussions of the methodology employed in research; literature reviews, survey instruments, modeling exercises, guidelines for practitioners and research professionals, and supporting documentation; and preliminary findings. All RAND technical reports were subject to rigorous peer review to ensure high standards for research quality and objectivity.

This document and trademark(s) contained herein are protected by law. This representation of RAND intellectual property is provided for noncommercial use only. Unauthorized posting of this publication online is prohibited; linking directly to this product page is encouraged. Permission is required from RAND to reproduce, or reuse in another form, any of its research documents for commercial purposes. For information on reprint and reuse permissions, please visit www.rand.org/pubs/permissions.

RAND is a nonprofit institution that helps improve policy and decisionmaking through research and analysis. RAND's publications do not necessarily reflect the opinions of its research clients and sponsors.

Version Note

This publication supersedes a previous version published in 2006 (WR-397-DOH).