Health minister promises Rate-My-Doc! service

AManFromMars for medics

By John Oates • Get more from this author

Posted in Government, 30th December 2008 12:52 GMT

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Ben Bradshaw, the UK health minister, wants the NHS Choices website to include a rate-your-doctor section where patients can mark their GP's skills, bedside manner and even post anonymous comments.

Bradshaw told the Guardian that NHS Choices already allows patients to comments on hospitals. Bradshaw has told civil servants to make a similar system available to comment on general practitoners next year. Given the DoH's record for successful IT projects we're probably safe for a while then.

Bradshaw showed his deep understanding of this area by saying he wanted the service to do for healthcare what Amazon has done for the book trade. There are already several websites which offer similar ratings and comments on GPs which will presumably be put out of business by Bradshaw - perhaps that explains his Amazon comment.

Maybe its time for a "rate-my-minister's-idioticy" website?

Confusingly Bradshaw also said the service would be moderated so as to not identify individual doctors or nurses which makes the whole thing even more pointless.

A spokesman for the BMA said such a scheme would encourage doctors to work the system in order to get votes. He told the Guardian: "If you want to survive as a GP, you will encourage patients to vote for you. It will be rather like Strictly Come Dancing." ®

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