Currently wave 1 independent sector treatment centre (ISTC) providers do not market their services to national health service patients or referrers.
Choice is a key part of health reform. Going forward, NHS providers, independent and public sector, should be providing patients with information which enables them to make an informed decision about their health care options. This will include information gathered from the treatment of NHS patients.
The marketing schedule for phase 2 ISTC contracts states that marketing brochures produced by the provider for patients of the facilities must include (among other things) patient and provider statistics consistent with those contained in the NHS choice booklets, to the extent that they are relevant to the ISTC programme. These include details of in-patient waiting times, cancelled operations, out-patient waiting times, methicillin resistant staphylococcus aureus infection rates and the results of patient satisfaction surveys.
Marketing brochures produced for Referring Health Service Bodies must include all the above, and in addition should cover complication rates and length of stay/day case rates.
The schedule also provides that marketing material should not include information relating to private health care services or products and services offered by the IS provider, or a third party, which do not relate to the services being provided under the ISTC agreement with the authority.