Nhs Patients: Nhs and Circle

nhs patients: Nottingham University Hospitals NHS trust NUH has been handed a 320m contract to run the centre for the next five years after a bitter legal battle between Circle and the NHS. Circle has run the centre since it opened in 2008 as one of the independent treatment centres ISTCs that the last Labour government set up to reduce the number of NHS patients waiting for non-urgent treatment, according to The Independent. Labour was accused of privatising part of the NHS because Circle was among a number of private companies that were put in charge of ISTCs and allowed to make a profit from them. Circle is losing the contract it has held for 11 years to run the Nottingham NHS Treatment Centre, which provides 240,000 operations and checkups a year. Other firms, notably Care UK and Ramsay Health Care, still run centres elsewhere in England. It said bringing the service into the NHS would significantly benefit patients . However, there are concerns that thousands of people who are waiting to be seen at the Nottingham centre, including cancer patients, will face delays once NUH takes over the contract on 29 July because it will not be in a position to provide the full range of services immediately. Rushcliffe NHS clinical commissioning group, the NHS body that awarded the contract on behalf of a group of CCGs, decided to give it to NUH despite legal threats by Circle. (news.financializer.com). As reported in the news.