2. To what extent was Choose and Book a failure?

Explain your answer. When senior cardiologist Duncan Dymond complained in 2010 that patients were arriving at his hospital at incorrect times and, far worse, in need of a different specialist, it was neither the beginning nor the end of problems with the Choose and Book system. Installed in 2004 as part of a £200 million IT modernization of Great Britain’s National Health Service (NHS), the patient booking system was supposed to enable patients to select a hospital for an outpatient appointment from a range of options, primarily with the help and direction of their general practitioner (GP). A letter with a referral number and a secure code was then generated so that the patient could either go online or call a central booking service to confirm the appointment. Initial contact could also occur directly via the national appointments line or at the HealthSpace Web site. The goals were threefold:

to speed up the referral process, eliminate costly paperwork, and encourage patient participation so as to stem losses of up to £225 million annually from 1.6 million patient no-shows.