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

Patient choice is nothing new (1) but it is a motif that is increasingly mobilised by politicians, policy-makers, 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 paper, we consider research in relation to the domain of localised prostate cancer in the UK, specifically to choosing treatment after first diagnosis. Before making some recommendations for research, the UK context is elaborated through a consideration of health policy, which is then related to changes in a specific service (the Yorkshire Cancer Centre) and research on patients’ experiences of treatment.