Ramsay Health Care UK

English private healthcare company

Ramsay Health Care UK

Industry| Health
Founded| 2007
Founder| Paul Ramsay
Headquarters|

London

United Kingdom

Number of locations

| 36

Key people

| Andrew Jones (CEO) [1]
Services| Health care
Parent| Ramsay Health Care
Website| www.ramsayhealth.co.uk

Ramsay Health Care UK is a healthcare company based in the United Kingdom. It was founded by Australian businessman Paul Ramsay, who established its parent company: Ramsay Health Care, in Sydney, Australia, in 1964 and has grown to become a global hospital group operating 151 hospitals and day surgery facilities across Australia, the United Kingdom, France, Indonesia and Malaysia.

In 2007, Capio was acquired by Ramsay Health Care. It was the first purchase abroad for the company and beat a number of other rivals. At the time, Capio was the fourth largest private hospitals operator in the UK.[2]

In 2017 turnover fell 4.8% compared to 2016, down to £208 million, and this was blamed on "NHS demand management strategies".[3] The company is more dependent on NHS work, largely through the Choose and Book system, than other private healthcare providers in the UK. In June 2018 it wrote down the value of some of its sites because NHS demand management strategies were having a significant negative impact on volume of business,[4] but in 2019 it announced that NHS referrals had increased by 7.4% and it had benefited from an increase in NHS tariff prices.[5]

In 2021 it made a bid to acquire Spire Healthcare for almost £1 billion. Spire is a much bigger operation in the UK than Ramsay.[6] The final price for Spire's 39 hospitals and eight clinics in the UK was agreed at $1.42 billion, but was rejected.[7]

Documents obtained by the Guardian and Good Law Project showed that Ramsay received £380 million in contracts from the UK government for surge capacity during the Covid-19 pandemic, but most of the beds provided went unused.[8]

## Facilities

[edit]

The UK network includes 36 private facilities offer a range of treatments from hip replacements to knee replacement surgery and cosmetic surgery to weight loss surgery.[9] It provides a number of Independent sector treatment centres for the English NHS.[10] In 2021 it generated about 80% of its revenues from contracts with the NHS.[11]

It runs the following facilities:

* Ashtead Hospital Surrey
* Berkshire Independent Hospital Reading
* Blakelands Hospital Milton Keynes
* Boston West Hospital
* Clifton Park Hospital York
* Cobalt Hospital North Tyneside
* Duchy Hospital Truro
* Euxton Hall Hospital Chorley
* Fitzwilliam Hospital Peterborough
* Fulwood Hospital Preston
* Horton Treatment Centre Banbury
* Mount Stuart Hospital Torquay
* New Hall Hospital Salisbury
* North Downs Hospital Caterham
* Nottingham Hospital
* Oaklands Hospital Salford
* Oaks Hospital Colchester
* Park Hill Hospital Doncaster
* Pinehill Hospital Hitchin
* Renacres Hospital Ormskirk
* Rivers Hospital & Neuro Services Sawbridgeworth
* Rowley Hospital Stafford
* Springfield Hospital Chelmsford
* Tees Valley Treatment Centre
* West Midlands Hospital Halesowen
* The Westbourne Centre Edgbaston
* Winfield Hospital & The Dean Neuro Centre Gloucester
* Woodland Hospital Kettering

In 2015 Ramsay Health Care UK partnered with GenesisCare to build new treatment facilities at Rivers Hospital, Sawbridgeworth, and Springfield Hospital, Chelmsford, where the facilities relocated their chemotherapy services to. GenesisCare also provided their radiotherapy services from the centres alongside Ramsay.[12]

Ramsay Health Care UK installed the IMS MAXIMS electronic patient record in all its 35 hospital sites in 2022, the first private healthcare provider in the UK to implement a system of this scale.[13]

## Quality

[edit]

Simon Healey, 60, died from sepsis in August 2017 nine days after bowel surgery at the Berkshire Independent Hospital in Reading. A claim brought by Mr Healey's widow Alison was settled by Ramsay Health Care UK, which runs the hospital, in 2022. In July 2014, nineteen patients, two of whom suffered serious ill effects, were given overdoses of an antibiotic administered into their eyes during surgery at Mount Stuart Hospital. Ramsay said the error was the result “of both process failure and human error”.[14]

Oaklands Hospital in Salford was rated inadequate by the Care Quality Commission in March 2017. They reported that "There was a culture of fear within theatres, which resulted in staff not challenging unsafe behaviours..."[15]

In 2018, Ramsay Health Care UK was the first hospital group to launch Speak Up for Safety™ a "staff accountability programme" across 33 of its hospitals to "strengthen its reporting culture and help safeguard patients."[16]

## See also

[edit]

* Private healthcare in the United Kingdom

## References

[edit]

1. ^ "Dr Andrew Jones named CEO of Ramsay Health Care UK". Health Insurance Daily. Retrieved 20 November 2018.
2. ^ "Australian health giant Ramsay buys Capio UK". The Independent. 2007-09-07. Retrieved 2017-01-16.
3. ^ "NHS revenues fall at private hospital firms". Health Service Journal. 2 March 2018. Retrieved 10 April 2018.
4. ^ "Hospital group writes down six sites amid 'demand management' gloom". Health Service Journal. 26 June 2018. Retrieved 5 September 2018.
5. ^ "UK revenue rise for private provider after NHS tariff hike". Health Service Journal. 2 September 2019. Retrieved 5 October 2019.
6. ^ "Two major private providers to the NHS to merge, expecting 'sustained demand'". Health Service Journal. 26 May 2021. Retrieved 4 July 2021.
7. ^ "Ramsay Health Care to snap up Spire". Financier Worldwide. 27 May 2021. Retrieved 3 September 2021.
8. ^ "EXCLUSIVE: Private hospitals were paid over £1.5 billion during the pandemic". Good Law Project. Retrieved 2021-11-03.
9. ^ "About Ramsay Health Care - Network of Private Hospitals Across The UK". www.ramsayhealth.co.uk. Retrieved 2017-01-12.
10. ^ Choices, N. H. S. "Overview - Ramsay Healthcare UK Operations Limited - NHS Choices". Retrieved 2017-01-12.
11. ^ "UK hospital group Spire accepts new £1.4bn offer from rival Ramsay". Financial Times. 5 July 2021. Retrieved 3 September 2021.
12. ^ "HealthInvestor - Article: Ramsay partners with GenesisCare". www.healthinvestor.co.uk. Retrieved 2017-01-12.
13. ^ "IMS MAXIMS' EPR rolled out across all Ramsay Health Care hospital sites". Digital Health. 1 February 2022. Retrieved 17 November 2022.
14. ^ "Cataract inquiry shows patients suffered 'potentially serious harm'". Guardian. 11 November 2014. Retrieved 17 November 2014.
15. ^ "'Culture of fear' at inadequate private hospital, says CQC". Health Service Journal. 15 March 2017. Retrieved 29 March 2017.
16. ^ "'Ramsay Launches'speaking up for safety' programme". Laing Buisson. 16 July 2018. Retrieved 29 Aug 2018.

## External links

[edit]

* Official website