Brief: NHS eBooking System promises greater Patient Control

The Department of Health has announced the contract award for a national electronic booking system for the NHS. Electronic booking will mean that patients will be able to choose, from a menu of options, which hospital they would like to attend at a date and time to suit them. New software will be available to more than 30,000 GPs connecting them to some 270 acute hospitals and community or mental health hospitals, so that patients are able to exercise this choice at the point of referral to hospital from their GP.

The Government hopes that electronic booking will take away the uncertainty and anxiety of waiting, sometimes weeks, to be sent an appointment in the post which may not be suitable for the patient. The electronic booking system will be introduced throughout the NHS in England with the first electronic bookings expected in summer 2004. Implementation of the national programme is expected to be completed by the end of 2005.

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