Patients choosing their hospital: may not be fair and equitable. (Editorials).

In a speech last week, the British secretary of state for health, Alan Milburn, continued his push to extend the right of patients to choose their hospital--and in so doing, cut the time they have to wait. (1) Given Sweden's experience where since 1992 a national guarantee of treatment within a certain period has been in place, and that of Denmark, where a similar guarantee has been in place for the past 10 years, squeezing an individualist notion of choice into a collectivist system of healthcare funding and provision may not prove as difficult as some expect But it will not be pain free for the NHS or clinicians, or, potentially, for some patients.

As currently conceived patients' choice is being driven by a …