ISTCs and the NHS: sticking plaster or real reform?
Thursday 03 April 2008Comment on this article Permlink
Independent sector treatment centres (ISTCs) were introduced in 2003 as part of a package of reforms to fundamentally shift the power to patients when receiving healthcare.
This report looks at the success of the ISTC programme so far and the lessons that should be drawn from this.
ISTCs offer elective (planned) and diagnostic care in dedicated units for a range of conditions such as hip and knee replacements, hernia repair and gall bladder and cataract removal.
The government’s intention was to encourage private capital to invest in the future of UK healthcare through a series of treatment centres, sitting alongside and offering an alternative to existing NHS hospitals.
Two waves of ISTCs were centrally procured by the Department of Health and any further centres will be procured locally by Primary Care Trusts (PCTs).
Twenty-three centres plus three mobile units are now in operation under wave I of the ISTC programme, delivering in excess of 170,000 operations annually over five years and representing an investment of around 1% of the total NHS budget.
Although small in scale, the aim of the programme was to change behaviour in the NHS by providing a challenge to traditional service delivery methods and to develop a ‘self-improving’ NHS.
CBI News Release: Brown’s Health Agenda Faces Critical Test – CBI.
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