Primary Healthcare Centre · Public–Private Partnership · PPP and primary care
A Public–Private Partnership Strengthening Diagnostics at Ikosi Ketu Primary Healthcare Centre
A public–private partnership bringing reliable on-site diagnostics to Ikosi Ketu Primary Healthcare Centre and the community it serves.
Background
Where this engagement started
Ikosi Ketu Primary Healthcare Centre serves the Ikosi Ketu community within Kosofe Local Government Area, Lagos State. Primary healthcare centres carry the bulk of routine care in Lagos, but diagnostic capability is often the point at which they run out of capacity. Patients can be seen but cannot always receive routine diagnostic tests at the same facility. Lifecentre Medical Diagnostics, part of the Zendale group, entered into a public–private partnership with the centre to close that gap: private operational capability and equipment brought to a public facility, under an agreed revenue-sharing framework, without the facility surrendering its public character.
Before the partnership, patients requiring diagnostic investigation had to be referred to external facilities. That produced a familiar and damaging sequence: delayed turnaround on results that were sometimes urgent, missed opportunities for early detection, inconsistent quality between external providers, slower clinical decision-making, and an additional financial and travel burden carried entirely by the patient. Each referral also risked losing the patient altogether. Continuity of care suffered, and confidence in the centre eroded as a result.
Ikosi Ketu, Kosofe Local Government Area, Lagos State
PPP and primary care
Scope
- Diagnostic service delivery on site at the primary healthcare centre
- Equipment installation, routine maintenance, calibration and quality assurance
- Supply of all consumables and imaging materials
- Deployment of qualified, trained diagnostic personnel for the service
- Patient workflow, reporting and turnaround-time management
- Regulatory and safety compliance across all services delivered
Approach
How we worked
Structuring the partnership so that responsibilities sit with whichever party is genuinely able to carry them. Lifecentre provides operational capability, equipment servicing, consumables, personnel and quality systems, while the PHC provides space, utilities, security and internal patient referral.
Operating to ISO-standard quality control processes, so that results produced on site are trusted by the clinicians relying on them.
Managing turnaround time as an explicit performance measure rather than an afterthought, since the speed of a result is what determines whether it changes a clinical decision.
Establishing a 70:30 revenue-sharing framework between Lifecentre and the PHC that funds continued operation rather than depending on further capital injection.
Workstreams
How the engagement was structured
- Diagnostic operations
- On-site laboratory and diagnostic services delivered by trained personnel, replacing external referral for routine investigation.
- Equipment and maintenance
- Installation where required, with routine maintenance, calibration and quality assurance carried as an ongoing obligation rather than a warranty afterthought.
- Supply and consumables
- Continuous supply of consumables and imaging materials, removing the stockout risk that ordinarily interrupts diagnostic services.
- Quality and compliance
- ISO-standard quality control, reporting discipline and compliance with applicable regulatory and safety standards.
The facility
Ikosi Ketu Primary Healthcare Centre
The centre, the diagnostic service operating within it, and the community it serves in Kosofe Local Government Area.
Ikosi Ketu Primary Healthcare Centre
Kosofe LGA, Lagos State
Outcome
Where it stands
The partnership is operating, and the model it establishes is the substantive result: a public primary healthcare centre able to offer reliable diagnostics on site, staffed and maintained by a private operator, funded by a revenue-sharing arrangement rather than a one-off grant. Patients who previously left the facility for basic investigation can now be seen and investigated in the same visit. A further proposal is under consideration to extend the arrangement to echocardiography, X-ray, mammography and advanced ultrasound imaging, which would move the centre from routine diagnostics toward genuinely comprehensive imaging capability.
Performance figures, patient volumes and revenue data are held by the partnership and are not published here. The imaging expansion described above is proposed and awaiting approval; nothing in this record should be read as a completed service.
Practices involved
Lessons
What this suggests more widely
- Diagnostic capability, not consulting-room capacity, is usually the ceiling on what a primary healthcare centre can actually do for a patient in one visit.
- A partnership holds when each side carries what it is genuinely able to carry. Equipment servicing, consumables and trained personnel are ongoing operational commitments.
- Revenue sharing is what makes the arrangement outlast the goodwill that created it; a service funded only by grant or donation stops when the funding does.
- Turnaround time deserves to be managed as a headline measure. A result that arrives after the clinical decision has been made has not improved care.
Replication
A model that can be repeated
The structure applied at Ikosi Ketu is repeatable across other primary healthcare centres, local government areas and state health boards: an assessment of the facility’s current diagnostic gap and referral patterns, a partnership structured around clearly divided responsibilities, an equipment and maintenance plan that is funded rather than assumed, and a revenue framework that sustains operation. Zendale Consulting advises institutions and public bodies on structuring, negotiating and implementing partnerships of this kind.
Next step
Interested in a comparable programme?
We can discuss how an engagement of this type would be scoped for your institution, and arrange a client reference where one is available.