Spire Healthcare

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Spire Healthcare is a private healthcare company, with 37 private hospitals in the UK. It was formed from the sale of 52 BUPA Hospitals to venture capitalists Cinven in 2007 for £1.4billion, and the purchase of two other healthcare groups.[1]

According to Spire, it employs over 7,600 people nationwide and treats over 930,000 patients per year.

It is one of four private hospital companies - the others being General Healthcare Group, Nuffield Health and Ramsay Health Care - that provide more than 60 per cent of Britain's £3 billion private healthcare market.[2]

Political relationships

Owners Cinven appointed former Labour Secretary of State for Health, Patricia Hewitt in 2008 as an adviser, paying her £60,000 for 18 days’ work a year. According to a Cinven spokesperson, Hewitt is employed "to provide her perspective on trends in the economy and politics".[3]

The relationship was put in the spotlight when an undercover reporter with the Sunday Times recorded Hewitt as claiming to have lobbied for her employers, including claiming it was through her efforts that Partnerships in Care, a private mental service provider owned by Cinven was able to give evidence to a government study. The Sunday Times article said Hewitt also claimed she had “spoken to ministers and civil servants” about changing a carbon reduction regulation that had helped her client Cinven and other private equity companies.[4]


==Under scrutiny from the Office of Fair Trading Circle, a relatively new private hospital company, is understood to have submitted a complaint to the Office of Fair Trading in 2010 arguing that agreements between the bigger private hospital providers and insurance companies such as Bupa, AXA/PPP and Aviva, which control almost 80 per cent of the market between them, could be anti-competitive. A study by the London School of Economics, Imperial College and the University of Bristol concluded that, in some parts of England, “hospitals operated in de facto monopoly markets”. [5]

The Times reported:

"The private healthcare sector is hoping to receive its biggest boost to business for years, as the coalition is expected to encourage the NHS to pay for more operations at private hospitals. However, criticism from the regulator could lead to a huge shift in the way that the market works."

Adrian Fawcett, chief executive of the more established General Healthcare Group, denied that the market was anti-competitive. He told The Times:

“There is a supply-and-demand issue. None of the major existing players have full facilities at the moment and it gets more difficult for new start-ups to be successful if there isn’t the demand from patients. What we really need to do is drum up more business.”

People

Contacts

Spire Healthcare central office
PO Box 62647,
120 Holborn
London EC1P 1JH

Url:www.spirehealthcare.com


References

  1. Spire Healthcare websiteAbout, accessed Nov 2010
  2. Catherine Boyle, OFT carries out exploratory operation on private hospitals, The Times, 12 Oct 2010
  3. Paul Hodkinson, Cinven plays down Hewitt relationship, e-financial news, 22 Mar 2010
  4. Claire Newell, Jonathan Calvert and Solvej Krause, Insight: ‘I’m like a cab for hire – at up to £5,000 a day’, The Sunday Times, March 21, 2010
  5. Catherine Boyle, OFT carries out exploratory operation on private hospitals, The Times, 12 Oct 2010
  6. Spire Healthcare website,Executive Management Team, accessed Nov 2010
  7. Spire Healthcare website,Executive Management Team, accessed Nov 2010