PM plans legal right to choose (From Your Local Guardian)

PM plans legal right to choose

1:04am Thursday 29th March 2012 in National News © Press Association 2013

People are to be given a legal "right to choose" which schools and hospitals they use under draft legislation.

Writing in the Daily Telegraph, Prime Minister David Cameron said people would be able to obtain effective redress if they their wishes were ignored.

As the Government publishes its updated White Paper on public services, he said he was determined to end "once and for all the closed, state monopoly".

"We are publishing draft legislation that could enshrine in law the right to choice," he said.

"This means if your mother needs hospital treatment, or your child is about to start school, you will get a choice over where they go.

"And if that choice doesn't exist, or you're not happy with it, you will have a way to get your complaint properly and fairly listened to - and resolved.

"So if as an outpatient you are unfairly denied the choice of appointment, you will be able to have that unfair and anti-competitive decision overruled.

"If you are a new service provider who believes you can offer a better service, you will have a way to break through the state monopoly and allow the service user, not the bureaucrat, to be your judge and jury."

Labour said it would look at the proposals, but so far the Government's record had been to take public services backwards.

"David Cameron's out-of-touch Government doesn't listen to the people who use our public services or the people who work in them - it listens to the people who give millions of pounds to the Conservative Party," a spokesman said.