ABSTRACT
It is directed specifically at securing freedom, individual responsibility and choice. The money it is a notional computer entry, derived from general taxation as an 'NHS credit' can only be spent on healthcare, not on lottery tickets. This change to patient fundholding can accomplish what the limited 'internal market' of the 1990s, and the continued purchaser/provider split, did not achieve. In the authors's contemporary context of NHS reform this means that the capacity must be available to permit contracts to move, so that the individual has the liberty and power to effect this, and so that Government protects the rules of choice and competition to secure it. For democratic choice to be genuine, it must be individual as well as collective. And for choices to be respected, they must be genuinely available, To be available, they must be attainable when the individual wishes.
