Competition can prove effective medicine - The Times 20th August 2007

Under Tony Blair, the threat of the private sector was used to try to change the behaviour of hospitals and consultants. Independent Sector Treatment Centres (ISTCs), run by private companies and staffed by doctors mostly from overseas, were given contracts for carrying out elective operations such as knee and hip replacements and cataract operations. Although the centres have conducted only a small minority of such operations and many have worked well below capacity, their effects have been very significant, ministers argue.

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