Surrey-Berkshire NHS trust expands its private brand

PPU Watch

Compiled by Philip Housden

Frimley Health has expanded its Parkside private care brand into the NHS trust’s new Heather­wood Hospital, Ascot, which is providing planned care services to Frimley Health NHS Trust’s 900,000 catchment across Berkshire, Hampshire, Surrey and south Buckinghamshire. 

Reported to cost £99m, the 11,500m2 Heatherwood Hospital includes six operating theatres, outpatient and diagnostic facilities, 48 inpatient beds plus 24 day-case cubicles with integrated private patient facilities. 

Parkside Suite Heatherwood comprises a purpose-built private patient unit inpatient ward of ten en-suite single rooms for elective surgical patients on the third floor of the new build and an outpatient department with five consulting rooms and two minor ops treatment rooms.

The trust’s successful private patient brand and footprint already includes dedicated facilities for private patients at both Frimley Park and Wexham Park hospitals. 

Frimley Health earned a record £10.7m in 2019-20 at 1.61% of turnover, and has for several years been a leading NHS trust provider of private patient services, in most years ranking 11th across the whole NHS in England and number one outside of London. 

In 2020-21, trust income fell to £4.4m revenues, down 58.6% due to Covid, and Frimley fell to the fourth highest earning trust behind Cambridge, Oxford and The Christie Hospital, Manchester. 

Philip Housden is a director of Housden Group.