This would tend to reduce the number of patients referred by GPs to consultants, but would see consultants helping to maintain the health of far more patients.
Young adults stressed the importance of demanding to see consultants during appointments and of complaining to staff when they felt that they were receiving sub-standard care.
Interviewees were unified in their desire to see consultants for their clinical appointments, but felt that it was often very difficult for them to access these senior professionals, particularly if nothing was 'wrong' with their diabetes control.
Partha Bose, of Monitor, another consultancy, sees consultants becoming more like poets and psychologists, peering into the minds of customers, and less like the spreadsheet geeks of yore.
More than three years after the accident, he was still seeing consultants about the complex shoulder fractures he received.
Extensive planning for the walkouts, which saw consultants yet again covering gaps in rotas left by striking junior colleagues, meant that "the health service has coped admirably", she added.
But Wythenshawe has started a pilot scheme which sees consultants working at weekends on medical wards, meaning patients can be discharged on Saturdays and Sundays.
They say the planned changes, due to be unveiled this month, will result in the most seriously ill patients seeing consultants more quickly, although they may have to travel further.
A surprising finding of this study was that the women who saw consultants who counselled and supported them were more anxious about breast cancer at follow-up.
Leisa Reichelt, Freelance user experience consultant (see above).
After visiting their GP a patient who pays to go private could see a consultant within weeks, instead of waiting months to see the same consultant on the NHS.
