Patient choice is at the heart of the NHS.

The NHS is offering more and more options to enable you to make choices that best suit your circumstances and giving you greater control of your care. If your GP needs to refer you for a physical or mental health condition, in most cases you have the legal right to choose the hospital or service you’d like to go to.

You can view what choices are currently available to NHS patients in the NHS Choice Framework, though there are some exceptions, for example if you need emergency care or you’re a member of the armed forces.

NHS Gloucestershire is committed to ensuring:

  • Residents of Gloucestershire are aware of their choices, including their NHS Constitutional legal rights, and actively seek and take up the choices available to them;
  • GPs/referrers are aware of, and want to support patients in exercising, the choices available to them;
  • Patients and GPs/referrers have the relevant information to help them to make choices about their care and treatment;
  • Choice is built into our commissioning process and how we develop contracts
  • Choice is embedded in how we refer, our protocols and care plans.
  • The CCG will continuously strive to improve the information available for patients, ensuring that they are consistently offered choice, and to raise their awareness – particularly of their NHS Constitutional legal rights.

You can find out more about your choices on the NHS website here.

Questions and Queries

If you have any questions regarding patient choice please contact the PALS team.

More information

You can find information on GP practices and hospitals near you by visiting the NHS website and using the ‘Find local services’ tool on the home page.

  • Health A-Z
    Use the treatment pages of the Health A-Z to see the common treatment options for particular conditions and find links to specialist charities and patient groups in each area.
  • Scorecard
    Use this tool to compare hospitals according to a range of performance measures and facilities. You can view your results by treatment type.
  • NHS e-Referral Service
    The online service that allows you to book your own hospital appointments.
  • Easy Read Leaflets
    Easy read leaflets setting out patients’ rights to choice in healthcare.

Further information can be found on the NHS England Patient website here.