Which NHS trust will buy a private hospital next?
PPU Watch.
Compiled by Philip Housden
Which NHS trust will buy a private hospital next?
Spire Tunbridge Wells Hospital
Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells (MTW) has become the latest NHS trust to acquire a small hospital from the independent sector.
RUH Bath’s Sulis Hospital has shown how such acquisitions can work successfully to deliver improved NHS capacity and access – and enable a positive income stream from private patient services development.
But similar takeovers of private patient capacity in King’s Lynn and Crewe have not seen equivalent growth in private patient revenues.
All the incumbent hospital chains having a mixed bag of ageing estate are facing increased competition from new market entrants.
This offers a generational opportunity for the NHS to acquire already built capacity and inherit a skilled workforce at a time when capital is so constrained. So where will be next?
MTW’s chief executive Miles Scott sees his purchase as an exciting opportunity: ‘It will enable us to develop planned procedures and diagnostic services and I am delighted this investment will benefit patients across our communities.’
Additional facilities will increase NHS capacity and enable MTW to do more procedures for long-waiting patients across Kent and Medway.
After a transition period of around six months, some NHS patients will access care at the Spire Tunbridge Wells site. The new facility will free up capacity at both Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells hospitals and additional patients will be seen at those sites.
Spire Tunbridge Wells employs 173 staff and work will begin on the transfer of their employment to MTW. It currently treats both private and NHS patients and, during the transition, Spire will continue to run the hospital and patient care as normal.
MTW will work with the Spire team to expand the use of the facility for NHS patients during this period and once the transition has completed, the management will be taken over by MTW.
Will MTW now grow private patient services on site to complement the Wells Suite at Tunbridge Wells Hospital? The trust’s private patient income was only £1m (0.15% of all income) in 2022-23, being a fraction of the £7-8m and 2% a year achieved a decade ago.
On the move
Moorfields Eye Hospital private care director Andrew Robertson is part-retiring after nearly five years at the trust.
Under his leadership, Moorfields Private has opened new outpatient services, signed a partnership with the Cleveland Clinic, and joined the London Specialist Hospitals partnership.
He also oversaw Moorfields Private Eye Hospital’s response to the commercial and service challenges of Covid-19 and, when elective surgery was placed on hold, redeployed staff to help with the response in London.
Record revenues of £40.8m were delivered in 2022-23, up £3.6m and 9.8%, and private patient incomes hit a new high of 15.4% of total trust income last year.
Mr Robertson told Independent Practitioner Today: ‘Over my career, I have managed a number of private hospitals. Moorfields Private has been like no other – a world-renowned centre of excellence for ophthalmic care, which invests perhaps the most I have ever seen in state-of-the-art equipment and technology.
‘I am proud to have added my own contribution to a truly first-class institution, especially through the opening of our clinic in New Cavendish Street, the heart of London’s medical district.’
Mark Bounds, most recently regional director south for Ramsay Health Care, has been appointed to succeed Andrew on an interim basis.
Philip Housden (right) is director of Housden Group commercial healthcare consultancy