Choosing health, choosing treatment: patient choice after diagnosis of localised prostate cancer

Patient choice is nothing new,1 but it is a motif that
is increasingly mobilized by politicians, policymakers, and health service providers across much of the Western world. Despite its global resonance, we want to make the case for considering the complexity of the contexts in which patient choice is offered. In this report, we consider research in relationship to the domain of localized prostate cancer in the United Kingdom, specifically to choosing treatment after the first diagnosis.
Before making some recommendations for research, the U.K. context is elaborated through a consideration of health policy, which is then related to the changes in a specific service (the Yorkshire Cancer Centre) and research on patients’ experiences of treatment.