R. Kipping, P. Meredith, et al. (2002). Booking patients for hospital care: Second interim report from the evaluation of the national booked admissions programme first wave pilots a progress report. Birmingham, H S M C Health Services Management Centre.

http://www.hsmc3.bham.ac.uk/hsmc/

The National Booked Admissions Programme was launched in 1998 as part of the government's strategy for modernising the NHS. The programme is designed to make the NHS more accessible and convenient, and to use resources more efficiently. The rationale behind the programme is that while waiting lists may have been acceptable when the NHS was set up, they appear increasingly incongruous in an era when patients expect to be active consumers of health care. Ministers have stated that they wish booking hospital
appointments to become as easy as booking travel tickets and hotel reservations in the future.

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In summary, the programme has shown that booking systems can be implemented in the NHS. Real progress has been made in booking day cases and a start has been made in booking inpatients. Booking from general practice is least developed, although its potential has been demonstrated. Compared with specialties and trusts not involved in the programme, the pilots have shown that it is possible to increase access and convenience for patients and make better use of NHS resources. The challenge now is to extend these benefits and to tackle the difficulties that have been encountered in relation to inpatients and booking from general practice. The proposals in the NHS Plan to invest in beds, staff and equipment should enable the provision of the infrastructure required to implement booking across the NHS. This will allow effort to be concentrated on the outstanding cultural challenges involved in delivering the targets set out in the Plan.