Treatment centres may destabilise NHS, doctors claim

Equity and NHS reforms. What about independent sector treatment centres?

David Oliver: NHS doctors' licence to challenge.

Imagine that you’re a head teacher at a state school. You have a professional obligation to give children the best education you can with the resources you have. They have no second chance. Whatever you may think about workforce gaps, dilapidated buildings, curriculum changes, class sizes, testing, and inspection, you strive to deliver maximum value to the students. You are on the public payrol...

Case-mix & patients' reports of outcome in Independent Sector Treatment Centres: Comparison with NHS providers

BACKGROUND There has been considerable concern expressed about the outcomes achieved in Independent Sector Treatment Centres (ISTCs) introduced in England since 2003. Our aim was to compare the case-mix and patients' reported outcomes of surgery in ISTCs and in NHS providers. METHODS Prospective cohort study of 769 patients treated in six ISTCs and 1895 treated in 20 NHS providers (acute hosp...

The impact of NHS walk-in centres on Emergency Departments

Objectives: To determine the impact of establishing walk-in centres alongside emergency departments on attendance rates, visit duration, process, costs and outcome of care. Methods: Eight hospitals with co-located emergency departments and walk-in centres were compared with eight matched emergency departments without walk-in centres. Site visits were conducted. Routine data about attendance num...

Liberating the NHS or trapping doctors?: the effects of NHS reform on today and tomorrow.

INTRODUCTION The coalition government recently revealed the ambitious task of ‘liberating the NHS’, a goal identified as the widest reforming change that the NHS has seen since its inception in 1948. The White Paper champions ideological aims to empower doctors while placing patients at the centre of their own management decisions, adopting the maxim ‘no decision about me, without me’. While su...