Jarvis and Carillion bid mini hospitals

Carillion and Jarvis have emerged as front runners for the government's first tranche of privately financed diagnostic and treatment centres (DTCs).

Under this controversial programme private consortia will, for the first time, directly employ all clinical staff, as well as design, build, refurbish, maintain and manage the clinics (CJ 8 January).

The programme is an attempt to radically reduce NHS waiting lists by providing 10 new DTCs and 8 chains of DTCs.

These will take the pressure off the acute hospitals by performing minor operations such as cataract surgery, hip replacements and knee operations.

The DTCs will employ teams of international clinicians to avoid draining the NHS of existing staff. Treatment will be free at the point of delivery and the units will be expected to make a radical impact an waiting times.

This first tranche of schemes is to be up and running by April 2005. The pilot programme will run for five years and is worth around £1.5bn.

Carillion, in consortium with Nestor Healthcare and Capio, is shortlisted for two new DTCs and four chains of DTCs. The two new DTCs are at Plymouth and Basildon.

The chains are: London Medical DTC chains 1 and 4; and London Ophthalmology DTC chains 1 and 2.

Jarvis, in collaboration with InterHealth Canada, is shortlisted for four new DTCs at: Burton; south-west Bristol; the South West Peninsular Orthopaedic Hospital; and the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital.

It is also front runner for two chains of DTCs. These are the South East General chain and the North West General chain.

A spokesman for the Department of Health's national implementation team, which is leading the pilot programme, told CJ: "The chains cover various parts of the country, where there are capacity gaps and we expect bidders to go for multiple chains.

"However, we are not being too prescriptive," he added.

Preferred bidders for the first tranche are expected to be announced by September.

The spokesman said the first tranche would provide a mix of refurb and new build. Later tranches will include a greater amount of new build.

Stephen Hughes, head of Bevan Ashford's Built Environment division, told CJ: "There will very likely be successive waves of these DTCs with a lot of potential for contractors to be involved, not in a PFI sense, but in a more traditional manner, as part of a supply chain contracted to a consortium."