Quality of health care: an absolute necessity for public satisfaction.

PURPOSE: The purpose of this paper is to discuss the value of consumers (patients) to assess the success or failure of a healthcare system. DESIGN/METHODOLOGY/APPROACH: An evaluation of current healthcare in the NHS from a patient perspective culminating in suggestions and methods to achieve a patient responsive system.
FINDINGS: The provision of best quality health services to patients is a difficult task especially when NHS budgets are being cut and jobs are being lost. NHS executives and managers claim that these redundancies will improve the quality of healthcare for the patient. However, running the NHS like a corporate organization is questionable as the way forward. There is no question of making profit (as is the norm in any corporate organization) and saving money at the expense of patient care. ORIGINALITY/VALUE: In order to find out the real performance of a healthcare system like the NHS, the satisfaction of the public should be the sole criteria for judgement.