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 08 September 2008 12:59 BST

Doctors slam hospital ad plans

Monday, 20 Nov 2006 14:35
Patients could soon choose their hospital based on adverts
Doctors have criticised plans to introduce new marketing guidelines allowing hospitals to advertise for patients.

The British Medical Association (BMA) argues that to spend money on advertising given the NHS' current deficit is a "sad indictment of government policy".

BBC News reports that it has seen a draft version of the Department of Health (DoH) guidelines, which aim to give "reliable information" to help patient choice.

Although a cap will not be placed on the amount primary care trusts can spend on advertisements, the DoH is expected to warn that disproportionate expenditure would reflect badly on the health service.

Responding to the proposals, Dr Jonathan Fielden, chairman of the BMA's consultants' committee said: "The government has created a market-based system to deliver health care which means the NHS is forced to compete against new private providers in delivering NHS services.

"NHS hospitals will have no option but to invest in marketing tactics, such as advertising, if they are to survive against private firms who will already have large marketing budgets and considerable expertise in selling themselves. This is all the more galling when the independent sector receives advantageous rates for less complex work on guaranteed contracts when compared to the NHS."

He added: "It is a sad indictment of government policy to consider spending public money on advertising NHS services when hospitals are having to make cutbacks in patient care and compulsory redundancies in order to save money."

But Michael Summers, a trustee of the Patients Association, said today that the proposals could ultimately help patients: "Provided that it doesn't detract from the amount of money that's available for the treatment of patients, then there is nothing that we would want to complain about in relation to advertising.

"The more information that patients and GPs have the better. A lot of the advertising will provide information to GPs about the specialist services available in particular hospitals, the mortality rates, the outcomes – all of these things are going to be useful for patients if they are genuinely going to be able to make a choice."End of story


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