Current UK government policy places much emphasis on increasing patient participation in health care, stressing that access to better information is required to support patients' participation and to enable them to make choices in their own health care.1 Patient participation has great practical value in achieving better health outcomes among those who actively participate in healthcare decisions compared to those who do not.2 Previous studies have shown that patients are not currently involved to the degree that they would prefer,3 and that this desire for engagement is consistent regardless of social background and educational status.4