All Independent providers articles – Page 73
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News
BMA slams private treatment centres
Plans for privately run clinical assessment, treat and support (CATS) centres in England could jeopardise NHS finances, threaten medical posts, and create potential conflicts of interest, the British Medical Association says today. The warning comes in response to consultation on plans for up to 10 CATS centres in Cumbria and ...
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HSJ Knowledge
Legal briefing: the separation of provider and commissioner
There is increasing pressure on primary care trusts to ensure clarity and robust processes around the distinction between provision and commissioning of services, warns David Owen
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HSJ Knowledge
What social enterprise can do for healthcare
A social enterprise is often defined as a business that trades with a social or environmental purpose. It is not driven by profit, and reinvests surpluses back into the organisation or community.
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News
Data on ISTCs' clinical quality is 'extremely poor', says Healthcare Commission
National data on the clinical quality of independent sector treatment centres is 'incomplete and of extremely poor quality', according to a review by the Healthcare Commission.
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News
Trusts prepare for hard sell to earn picky patients' custom
DoH guidelines have opened the door for hospitals to use commercial advertising techniques. Is this necessary for healthy competition or a green light for unseemly publicity battles? Kaye McIntosh hears some early pledges of fair play
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Comment
Independent sector falls down on data
A level playing field is the holy grail of trust managers who see themselves as competing with the private sector for clinical work. Key to that is confidence that patients and their GPs will be able to make informed choices about where they should go for treatment.
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News
Commission appoints new head of independent healthcare
The Healthcare Commission has appointed Jon Billings as head of independent healthcare.Mr Billing has been acting in the post since March 2006 and was previously in charge of the Commission's London and South East Region operations team.He takes the role as the commission moves to inspecting fewer independent healthcare sites ...
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News
BUPA predicts £11bn hole in NHS funds
A report commissioned by private health insurer BUPA claims the NHS should brace itself for a projected £11bn funding gap and subsequent return to 1997 levels of performance by 2015 if high levels of investment do not continue.
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News
Doubts over DoH claims about expert patients
Claims that the expert patients programme will ease pressures on the NHS have been queried by an academic who reviewed the scheme for the Department of Health.
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News
Lord Warner: PCT commissioning advert blunder 'only human'
Health minister Lord Warner has labelled his department's hurried withdrawal of an advertisement to contract out primary care trust management services as 'unfortunate' ' but stood by the government's assertion of the need to bring in private sector commissioning experience.
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News
Helpline aims for foundation trust status
NHS Direct has become a trust under the Department of Health's review of arm's-length bodies.
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News
Air ambulance charities hope for NHS cash
Air ambulance charities believe the NHS is ready to recognise the role they could play in improving emergency care - and that funding for improved services could be on the cards.
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News
Statutory control on decisions is not enough to allay fears
All over the country, primary care trust chief executives are sitting hot and sweaty in their best suits, fighting for their future careers.
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Comment
Skilled analysts of little use to the NHS
Do external consultants working in NHS organisations really deliver the goods? Birmingham University's Jonathan Shapiro argues that they may know how to diagnose problems, but cultural signposts pass them by
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HSJ Knowledge
Staying power: beacon sites offer some answers
Why could US provider Kaiser provide better care at the same cost as the NHS? Why were there so many bed days in the UK? After four years of questions, writes Professor Chris Ham, beacon sites are providing answers
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News
Operating framework: PCTs to assess services
All primary care trusts will have to conduct a service review programme next year to examine the services they commission.
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News
Primary care trusts told to fill Atos gap
NHS providers could struggle to fill the gap left by the collapse of a £257m diagnostics contract.
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News
DoH will not limit private audiology
The Department of Health is refusing to bow to calls to limit private sector provision of audiology services.
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News
Good intentions could be disguising a big, bad threat
It is the much-heralded new model for 21st century healthcare provision, but could confusion over its meaning and the lack of safeguards against manipulation leave social enterprise open to abuse from profit-makers? Helen Mooney finds out
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News
Former chief exec calls for more private beds for children
Commissioners should make greater use of the independent sector to stop children from being placed on adult mental health wards, a former mental health trust chief executive has said.