General practice

Patients' views of priority setting in health care: an interview survey in one practice

^a 93 Cambridge Street, London SW1V 4PY, ^b Department of Public Health Medicine, United Medical and Dental School of Guy's and St Thomas's, Guy's Campus, London SE1 9RT

Correspondence to: Dr Dicker.

Abstract

Objectives: To explore the assumptions underlying consumers' responses to questions of resource priorities in the NHS.
Design: Qualitative analysis of semi-structured interviews with a heterogeneous sample of 16 patients drawn from a general practice.
Results: Interviewees were not persuaded that they had a legitimate role to play in the prioritisation of services. They supported the principle of equity and were reluctant to use their own personal needs as a basis for resource allocation; instead they argued from what they perceived to be the needs of others.
Conclusions: Paradoxically, surveys of consumers' views on health care priorities probably do not elicit the personal ideas of respondents but tap into a more general ideological position closer to an earlier collectivist notion of health care.

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