Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of abbreviations
- Notes on the authors
- Introduction
- one Transplanted roots: where the innovation came from
- two Fertile ground? The organisational milieux of the treatment centres
- three Taking up the challenge: local motives for the innovation
- four The impact of the wider policy context
- five Achieving the goals? How and why the treatment centres evolved
- six Improving practice? Evidence of innovative ways of working
- seven Summary and conclusions: making sense of what happened
- eight Implications for policy, practice and research
- Appendix 1 Early definitions of a treatment centre
- Appendix 2 The study design and methods
- References
four - The impact of the wider policy context
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 September 2022
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of abbreviations
- Notes on the authors
- Introduction
- one Transplanted roots: where the innovation came from
- two Fertile ground? The organisational milieux of the treatment centres
- three Taking up the challenge: local motives for the innovation
- four The impact of the wider policy context
- five Achieving the goals? How and why the treatment centres evolved
- six Improving practice? Evidence of innovative ways of working
- seven Summary and conclusions: making sense of what happened
- eight Implications for policy, practice and research
- Appendix 1 Early definitions of a treatment centre
- Appendix 2 The study design and methods
- References
Summary
The public's top concern about the NHS is waiting for treatment. (DH, 2000a, para 12.1, p 101)
The national Treatment Centre programme is entering a significant new phase of its development. The change provides a simpler name for the public and for patients at this key moment. It does not reflect any change in the core characteristics of schemes, or the overall objectives of the programme. From now on all national publicity will refer consistently to Treatment Centres. All the Independent Sector schemes will brand themselves Treatment Centres under contract. It would clearly help build consistency across the programme and help build public recognition and acceptance (especially with patient choice in mind) if the NHS schemes adopt the same name. (DH, 2003b)
The “war on waiting” had been at the core of the NHS policies of the Labour government since 1997 (Harrison and Appleby, 2005) and set the overall policy context for TCs during our period of research. The NHS Plan of 2000 marked a shift away from reducing the number of people waiting and onto the time they waited, by introducing new investments and targets along with a wide range of policies to help transform the way that elective care was provided. The new emphasis was on TCs, day surgery, the NHS Modernisation Agency, specialty programmes such as orthopaedics and ophthalmology (an early focus for TCs) and ‘Patient Choice’. The government also supported the development of new services in community settings; it also set targets for increasing the overall number of hospital beds and introduced a star-rating system for trusts’ overall performance in which five out of nine “key targets” were related to waiting. In 2004 the government announced a new target for the NHS, that by 2008 no one should wait longer than 18 weeks from referral by a GP to hospital treatment. The target was to be helped by extra capacity in the independent sector, which was beginning to become available and was set to increase. By early 2005, the government had agreed to £3 billion worth of contracts with the independent sector to overcome shortfalls in diagnostic capacity alone.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Organisational Innovation in Health ServicesLessons from the NHS Treatment Centres, pp. 51 - 62Publisher: Bristol University PressPrint publication year: 2011