The NHS is acting as a safety net for patients who receive inferior treatment at independent sector treatment centres that have yet to prove themselves, MPs have been told. Worries about the quality of independent sector treatment centres (ISTCs) were voiced by various doctors' representatives to the health parliamentary select committee last week at the first session of oral evidence in the committee's inquiry into these centres.

England has 20 independent sector treatment centres, with 10 more planned. The first centre opened in October 2003 under a partnership agreement between the NHS and the private sector to carry out specific procedures to help …