Ministers are aiming to improve GP performance in England by allowing patients to post comment about practices on the NHS Choices website by summer 2009.

As long as they introduce one for MP's at the same time.

Perhaps in the present world financial climate we should just remind ourselves how much the DOH is actually paying for this website, run by the Capita Group. From a Capita press release earlier this year and posted on this site: "The Department of Health has announced their intention to award Capita the contract to develop and deliver NHS Choices, the digital channel to connect citizens and intermediaries with the NHS. The contract is subject to finalisation and is expected to be worth £60 million over three years, with an option to extend for a further two years. Service commencement is anticipated to be September 2008". This is in addition to the other well known DOH website, NHS Direct. Considering most practices already have their own website and (up to now) annual patient surveys, this does seem to be a complete waste of taxpayers money. The DOH set up this website, paid £60m for it's upkeep and then asked practices if they would be prepared to update the details. As a Practice Manager, I encourage direct feedback when things go wrong but I don't want to read about it at the same time as the public. I think I am close enough to the coal face to know when something has gone wrong, which is obviously closer than the DOH.

You might be interested to know that NHS Choices merged with NHS Direct last month: http://www.healthcarerepublic.com/news/GP/861735/NHS-Direct-merges-NHS-Choices/

Since when have customer comment websites truly reflected the treatment received. Most people can only be bothered to comment when they are very unhappy with the perceived service they have received. This usually occurs when their demands CANNOT be met. All league tables simply focus performance on acheiving number one status on the criteria counted which does not necessarily improve the overall service to the patient.

This fatuous exercise indicates that the DoH has no idea what medicine is all about. The Guardian reports Ben Bradshaw as saying that "he wants the site to do for healthcare what Amazon has done for the book trade and Trip Adviser for the travel industry....". GPs are not objects, they are highly-trained and skilled human beings with a vital role to play not only in the health of the nation but also in their local communities. It is time to demand a total reshuffle in order to replace the current encumbents of the DoH with people who have at least a modicum of knowledge of how the real world works: unfortunately it is unlikely at present that any suitable politicians could be found in any political party.

so ... how do they plan to "moderate" the comments so that no single GPcan be identified? What about single handed GPs? What about a single male or female GP in a practice.

...and if they will not be identified \(and of course they can't be) , what use is the whole exercise anyway? Just a way fo allowing people to vent their anger whne they find that perfection is elusive? It will also increase medicalisation of trivia and give more opporutnity for the worried well \(and probably well-off) to take time and resources away from those who are really sick.