This publication lays out the questions the government must answer if it wants to place patient choice at the heart of a taxpayer-funded health care system, including how extra costs will be met, whether patients are willing and able to exercise choice in their own best interests, and what kinds of limits to choice might be needed. It aims to set out the policy issues, history and consequences surrounding recent government moves towards promoting choice for patients in the NHS, and to identify necessary limits to choice in a public health care system as part of a general critique of choice. [Cover information abbreviated]