All private hospitals should collect patient reported outcomes measures (Proms) in a number of surgical areas so that patients can make an informed choice when deciding upon a hospital, a medical director has claimed.
Dr Andrew Vallance-Owen, group medical director of Bupa, believes that real choice for patients and commissioners will not be possible until this takes place.
Dr Vallance-Owen is due to tell the Royal Society of Medicine that Proms should be collected for a number of areas, including hip and knee replacements, groin hernia repair and varicose vein operations.
Speaking ahead of a meeting at the RSM, the director commented: "The main challenge faced by public and private healthcare providers is the same - to make health and care personal; to make it beneficial to patients; and to make it measurable."
He pointed out that, while doctors are able to measure the state of people's health when they develop a problem, "they haven't been as good at the routine measurement of success or health gain after treatment".
"This information needs to come directly from patients and Proms are a good way of measuring the benefits that patients have gained from treatment," he claimed.
Dr Vallance-Owen urged his colleagues to "take up the outcomes agenda and drive it forward".
"We need to place patients firmly at the centre of things so that Proms have a greater role to play in creating the best possible health service for the future," he concluded.
