The choice is yours

Choice continues to be a buzzword with politicians. Choice is now compulsory, even when it’s between substandard goods or services. So when I was told about NHS Choices, and that it was similar to but better than NHS Direct, I was sceptical (now I’ve shocked you).

It’s all a bit strange, actually. NHS Direct is still there (last time I looked), with all the features which led us to put it on the Gateway in the first place: information about the NHS and the 24 hour advice line staffed by nurses; a self-help guide; a search box for local services such as doctors and dentists; and a health encyclopaedia explaining key medical concepts.

Now along comes NHS Choices, doing all the same things. What’s going on? My theory is that Choices is a development of Direct, and that they are keeping Direct going for the time being, in case Choices collapses. Given the government’s record with IT projects, that may prove a wise decision.

Doctor Where

We’ll keep an eye on all that, but in the meantime we’ve plumped for NHS Choices on the Gateway, prompted by its better performance in the finding-a-doctor department. When you first look at the home page, the search box simply says "enter a search term" – not very helpful. But if you click "GPs" in the grey box, the search box changes, to "place, postcode or organisation". Pop in your postcode, to get a list of local doctors (or dentists or hospitals, with more options).

The advantage of NHS Choices is that each item on the list has the information you need to choose a doctor. The distance from your home, the clinics the surgery runs, whether they are accepting new patients, whether they have early or late surgeries: all these are given, along with full contact details. Click on an individual entry for surgery and opening times. The print version seems to include all the information from the web page – now there’s a novelty!

I have concentrated on the "finder" function, but the site is also groaning with health advice, some of it interactive. My eye was also caught by the "compare hospitals" feature. This is a bit clunky – you have to do a lot of clicking to build up a comparison – but it’s a good start, and will be even more worthwhile when they start to get (and publish) feedback scores.

We’re getting flashier

By the way, if you are using a Westminster Libraries computer, you may find difficulty using some of the interactive functions on NHS Choices and some other websites. This is because they need the latest version of Flash (whizzy software). The bad news is that we don’t have it, but the good news is that it’s coming next month.

(From the Gateway to websites, select "Health & medicine". NHS Choices is a Key link.)

Picture credit: click/morguefile.com