The health organisation that runs the Nottingham NHS Treatment Centre has been named in a recent report as one of the most innovative and successful in its sector.

The report, by Professor Chris Ham and Jo Ellins of Birmingham University, has been published by the Nuffield Trust and examines ways in which the NHS can engage staff and align incentives to achieve higher levels of performance. It recommends co-ownership and uses the Circle Partnership as a model to emulate.

The Treatment Centre, situated on the Queens Medical Campus in Nottingham, opened in July 2008 with the aim of reducing waiting times, improving patient choice and delivering a high quality healthcare service in modern and comfortable surroundings. Now fully functional, it provides services to over 10,000 patients a month in 29 specialties and sub-specialties. Patient satisfaction feedback has been overwhelmingly positive and MRSA rates are zero.

The Centre delivers day-case surgery and outpatient clinics and is, in fact, the largest day case treatment centre in Europe. It has five operating theatres as well as diagnostic testing facilities that include MRI and CT scanning.

Circle is a private health care provider, established in 2004. In five years it has become Europe's largest health care partnership. The company is based on a professional partnership model that was developed to use co-ownership to create a 'partnership of equals' and align incentives across the organisation. It also aims to foster a culture of clinical leadership and shared accountability.

John Ward, one of the clinical leads at the centre, commented: "Circle believes healthcare services should be run from the bottom up. Ownership and the decision-making processes should lie with the professionals who are closest to the patients.

"Circle partners are actively involved in the planning and management of the company and the partnership model gives us a unique ability to eliminate excess costs, while providing a better patient experience."

And the model seems to be working. Since the opening of the Nottingham NHS Treatment Centre, 94 per cent of patients who responded to a questionnaire said that they were happy with the service they had received and 95 per cent said that they would recommend the Centre to a friend.

The Treatment Centre's General Manager, Rachael Magnani, commented: "We're thrilled that our patients are happy with the care they've received and the Centre's facilities. Patient care is our primary concern and it's reassuring to see that as well as providing excellent healthcare, we are making a real difference to the overall experience the patient receives."

Note

At the end of 2008, there were nearly 1,200 consultants in the Circle Partnership and the development of clinics and community services has seen the Partnership expand to include 600 GPs plus practice staff. All clinical and non-clinical staff are invited into the Partnership when they join the company or commit a proportion of their practice to a Circle facility.

The Nottingham NHS Treatment Centre is part of the Independent Sector Treatment Centres (ISTC) programme, a Government Initiative to help reduce waiting times, improve the patient experience and introduce further innovation into the NHS.

The ISTC programme for Nottingham is a partnering between the Department of Health, Primary Care Trusts, Nations Healthcare and the Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust. Circle Partnership delivers its services at the Nottingham NHS Treatment Centre to NHS patients on behalf of the NHS.

Source
Nottingham NHS Treatment Centre