07 February 2009  Choice, choice and more choice  How many
surveys do you think the Department of Health has conducted on
the topic of patient choice? Three? Half a dozen? The answer is
over a dozen. Fifteen to be precise. How many patients do you
think they questioned for their latest survey? A hundred? Five
hundred? Five thousand maybe? The answer is 93,000? How much do
you think this cost? £50,000? £100,000? £200,000 maybe? The
answer is that only the Department of Health knows. If you use
the Freedom of Information Act to find out they will tell you
that this information is not available because it's to do with
commercial contracts. Dr Grumble would say that this is his
taxpayers' money so he should be allowed to know.  Why is the
Department of Health so obsessed with choice that it has to
carry out fifteen surveys of tens of thousands of people on the
topic? Is there something wrong with the amount of choice our
patients are getting? Let's look at the bottom line from this
survey:    • 67 percent of pati