Recent publication of reports showing high revision rates for hip and knee replacements carried out in Independent Sector Treatment Centres (ISTCs) has raised doubts regarding their ability to provide high quality healthcare. The high revision rates also create a financial burden to the NHS. The poor quality of data collected at ISTCs makes their performance difficult to evaluate. Funds may be ...

BACKGROUND Completion of treatment of active cases of tuberculosis (TB) is the most important priority of TB control programs. This study was carried out to assess treatment completion for active cases of pulmonary TB in Toronto. METHODS Consecutive cases of culture-proven pulmonary TB were obtained from the microbiology laboratories of 5 university-affiliated tertiary care centres in Toronto...

We assessed the performance of decentralised tuberculosis (TB) out-patient centres in tuberculosis (TB) case notification and treatment success in Armenia. An average threshold case notification of ⩾37/100 000 was seen in centres that had higher numbers of presumptive TB patients, where more TB was diagnosed by in-patient facilities and where TB contacts were examined. The number of doctors and...