Justin Ash, the chief executive of Spire Healthcare, is seeking to lessen its exposure to the NHS by increasing the proportion of private patient revenue, reviving underperforming hospitals and improving its clinical quality TIMES PHOTOGRAPHER JACK HILLProfits fell sharply at one of Britain’s biggest private hospital chains last year as it suffered an “unprecedented” drop in revenues from the NHS and invested in an overhaul of the business. Spire Healthcare said pre-tax profits fell 63.9 per cent to £8.2 million and revenue was broadly flat, down 0.1 per cent to £931.1 million, in the year to the end of December. Stripping out exceptional costs, such as £17.9 million of hospital costs, including the closure of a clinic in Windsor, operating profit was down 41.2 per cent to £54.2 million. Spire, a constituent of the FTSE 250, operates 39 private hospitals, eight clinics and a specialist cancer care centre in Britain, caring for about 260,000 in-patients and daycase patients last year.

Source: The Times February 28, 2019 09:11 UTC