ABSTRACT
This book grew from the observation that across Europe the development of health policy appeared to be incorporating two distinct and sometimes mutually exclusive ideas: a process of healthcare reform promoting competition and the commercialisation of services on the one hand and a focus on citizen and patient rights and their involvement in the evaluation and development of health services on the other. Both discourses are drawn on to support patient choice as a further mechanism for health reform but they do so from entirely different justifications.
