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WHY SHARED DECISION MAKING IS IMPOSSIBLE IN THE NHS
The relationship between doctors and their patients has changed dramatically over the past few years. Medical Beneficence became paternalism and is now near obsolete. Shared decision making is the new lofty ideal we should all be striving for. It is guiding  new health policy in the UK, nothing about me without me, and in the US. We are at the start of the Century of the Patient. New appropriate societies have been formed such as the Society of Paticipatory Medicine and the Foundation for Informed Medical Decision Making.
This is all excellent stuff. As a doctor, I'd like to think that I have practiced so called partcipatory medicine all my life.
There are caveats with all of this. In a universal health service such as the British NHS, funding is through general taxation and whose levels are determined by albeit elected politicians. Because of this, the NHS will always, whatever the protestations of different health secretaries, be controlled from the top.  Shared decision making, which surely also means an input into how much I want spent on me as a patient,  is clearly not possible. With shared decision making must come the counterbalance of responsibility and accountability on the part of the patient.  This has been recognized in the Affordable Care Act, the Health Reform Act introduced by the current administration in the United States. This will allow 'rebates' for good behaviour - and good healthy behaviour can easily be measured e.g. weight, markers of smoking etc. In the UK, we have the Downing Street Nudgers who will nudge (nanny state lite) all of us into behaving in a way that will not break the NHS bank in a few years. It does not need a Committee in the House of Lords to tell us that Nudge alone will not work. Being nudged itself is anything but being involved in decision making.
All the good ideas in health care are now coming from across the pond.
You just cannot have your cake and eat it and you just cannot have meaningful true Shared Decision Making in the currently funded British NHS  - the 2 are incompatible - PERIOD
Tags: NHSREFORMSNUDGETHEORYHEALTHINSURANCESHAREDDECISONMAKING
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jane philip wrote:
I expect Norman has never worked in the UK NHS, and I suspect he works in USA. The very country that spends more than any other, but has poorer health outcomes in many areas, eg perinatal mortality. Shared decision making in the NHS is possible, we do it every day, but with patient rights go patient responsibilities to use resources sensibly and equitably. It does not include patients having carte blanche to demand unnecessary investigations and treatments. Maybe USA needs to look at how much money is wasted in insurance payouts for what in many cases is "health consumerism"
14/8/2011 11:22 PM BST on bmj.com
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22/8/2011 5:35 AM BST on bmj.com