Sir - I had assumed that the new drive in the NHS was to empower patients to exercise choice. If this is so it is a message that has escaped the managers at the John Radcliffe Hospital. After receiving excellent medical attention I was given a prescription, which did not require dispensing for several days.

For reasons of health and finance I wished to leave the hospital and go home to have a meal on schedule. However the system decrees that the prescription could only be dispensed at the John Radcliffe. This involved a lengthy wait, which cost me dear, adding to the John Radcliffe's car parking income of £1,724,000, and requiring me to pay for a meal at the in-house restaurant.

Given choice, I would have gone home had my meal on time with the appropriate non-related medication and then presented the prescription to the local market town pharmacy, at my convenience. with considerable saving in cost and time.

Brian Benson, Ewelme