Patient choice within Lancashire and South Cumbria Integrated Care Board

Our role as Lancashire and South Cumbria Integrated Care Board is to join up health and care services, improve people's health and wellbeing, and make sure everyone has the same access to services and gets the same outcomes from treatment.  

We are committed to ensuring that people living in Lancashire and South Cumbria have the right to choose and are fully informed of their options regarding which provider they are referred to, based on both geography and waiting times. 

If you have been referred for consultant-led treatment, or to a mental health professional, you can:

• decide which provider you would like to receive care from as an outpatient
• choose the clinical team who will oversee your care within that provider organisation

These choices apply to both physical and mental health, but only apply at the point of referral (from a GP, dentist or optometrist) to providers that have an NHS contract to provide the service required. 

Wherever practical, we will ensure that five choices are shortlisted for you to choose from that will be offered to you via your GP practice or a referral management centre (e-referral service). This will include providers from the independent sector who the ICB have commissioned to provide that service.

You can ask to be referred to a different provider of NHS services in specific circumstances, which includes if you will have to wait, or have waited more than 18 weeks and meet the criteria noted in the national guidance.

Our aim is to ensure that all patients have access and choice to appropriate services and receive the treatment / input they require.

For full details of the NHS guidance document for patient choice please see:

NHS Choice Framework - what choices are available to you in your NHS care - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)