Right to Request Social Enterprises: a welcome addition to Third Sector delivery of health care?

The English National Health Service introduced the Right to Request (RtR) scheme in 2008, which enabled healthcare staff working in the public sector to 'spin out' community health services into social enterprises. Staff wanting to spin out had to apply to their primary care trust board, which was required to consider their requests and if accepted to guarantee initial contracts of between three and five years. This article reviews the RtR scheme and provides an overview of the organisations that have been launched to date. It then considers the implications of the scheme in relation to its implied objectives of improving patient care and empowering staff, as well as the impact on the health and social care system and on the third sector more widely.