ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses that the National Health Services (NHS) as a whole and patients in particular, will be better served if patients are encouraged, and even educated, to take on another market-based role, namely, that of consumer. Patients may be passive in the sense of resigned and even submissive but they can equally well be demanding and selfish. The chapter explores the three main roles available for the individual in the doctor-individual interaction, namely, individual as: Patient; Citizen; Customer/consumer. Just as there is nowadays less moral content to the concept 'citizen' there is potentially more to the concept 'consumer'. The consumer represents the values of the market economy, which values are undermining the public service and collectivist values on which the NHS is founded. In a powerful critique of both egalitarianism and natural-rights libertarianism, one eminent philosopher argues that this stereotypical image of the egoistic consumer.
