Britain's new market model of general practice: do consumers know enough to make it work?

In 1989 the British Government announced radical plans, now in the process of implementation, for the reform of the National Health Service. The proposals for primary health care imply a market model, insofar as they assume that patients will be active consumers searching out those general practices which best meet their needs. This paper tests one key assumption of this strategy, i.e., that patients have the information required to make such choices. It does so by analysing the data generated by a survey of the health beliefs and practices of 4266 people. The results suggest that British consumers lack the knowledge needed to make market-style choices and that, more generally, policy makers applying the market model to health care should explicitly address the problem of how to create a better informed public.