Circle Health Group is a private healthcare provider in the United Kingdom, co-founded in 2004 by former investment banker
Ali Parsa
Ali Parsadoust (commonly known as Ali Parsa) is a Iranians in the United Kingdom, British-Iranian healthcare entrepreneur and former investment banker. He is the founder and CEO of digital healthcare company Babylon Health and the co-founder and fo ...
and consultant ophthalmologist
Massoud Fouladi.
The company is currently led by former
lastminute.com Finance Director Paolo Pieri.
Circle began with independent hospitals near
Bath and
Reading
Reading is the process of taking in the sense or meaning of Letter (alphabet), letters, symbols, etc., especially by Visual perception, sight or Somatosensory system, touch.
For educators and researchers, reading is a multifaceted process invo ...
, and now has hospitals in England, Wales and Scotland, together with two in China.
Circle Health ran an
independent sector treatment centre
Independent sector treatment centres (ISTCs) are private-sector owned treatment centres contracted within the English National Health Service to treat NHS patients free at the point of use. They are sometimes referred to as 'surgicentres' or ‘sp ...
delivering
dermatology
Dermatology is the branch of medicine dealing with the skin.''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary.'' Random House, Inc. 2001. Page 537. . It is a speciality with both medical and surgical aspects. A dermatologist is a specialist medical ...
services in
Nottingham
Nottingham ( , East Midlands English, locally ) is a city status in the United Kingdom, city and Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority area in Nottinghamshire, East Midlands, England. It is located north-west of London, south-east ...
from 2008 until 2019, at which point the operation of dermatology services was returned to
Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust
Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust (NUH) is one of England's largest acute teaching trusts. It was established on 1 April 2006 following the merger of Nottingham City Hospital and the Queen's Medical Centre NHS Trusts. They provide acute ...
. The operation of dermatology services during the period in which they were run by Circle Health was described as an "unmitigated disaster" in an independent report commissioned by the local
clinical commissioning group
Clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) were NHS organisations set up by the Health and Social Care Act 2012 to organise the delivery of NHS services in each of their local areas in England. On 1 July 2022 they were abolished and replaced by Integra ...
which runs health services in the county.
In November 2011, the company was awarded a contract to run
Hinchingbrooke Hospital
Hinchingbrooke Hospital is a small district general hospital in Hinchingbrooke near Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire. Opened in 1983, it serves the Huntingdonshire area, and has a range of specialities as well as an emergency department and a materni ...
in Cambridgeshire, the first
NHS England
NHS England, officially the NHS Commissioning Board, is an executive non-departmental public body of the Department of Health and Social Care. It oversees the budget, planning, delivery and day-to-day operation of the commissioning side of the ...
hospital to be operated by a private company. Circle Health withdrew from the hospital, three years into the ten-year contract, shortly after being severely criticised by the
Care Quality Commission
The Care Quality Commission (CQC) is an executive non-departmental public body of the Department of Health and Social Care of the United Kingdom. It was established in 2009 to regulate and inspect health and social care services in England.
I ...
(CQC) over standards of care and hygiene. The CQC report indicated that "Medical services were inadequate because we found poor emotional and physical care which was not safe or caring. This was not reported by leaders of the service to the trust management therefore we judged the leadership to be inadequate." It was the worst rating for 'caring' that the CQC had ever given.
In December 2019, the company acquired
BMI Healthcare
BMI Healthcare was an independent provider of private healthcare, offering treatment to private patients, medically insured patients, and NHS patients. , it had 54 private hospitals and healthcare facilities across the UK, with headquarters in ...
, to form the biggest private hospital provider in the UK, which it rebranded as Circle Health Group. The combined group has annual revenues of almost £1billion. Since 2021 it has been a subsidiary of
Centene Corporation.
History
Circle was founded in 2004 as Centres Of Clinical Excellence Limited, co-founded in 2004 by
Babylon Health
Babylon Health is a digital-first health service provider that combines an artificial intelligence powered platform with virtual clinical operations for patients. Patients are connected with health care professionals through its web and mobile ...
founder and former investment banker
Ali Parsa
Ali Parsadoust (commonly known as Ali Parsa) is a Iranians in the United Kingdom, British-Iranian healthcare entrepreneur and former investment banker. He is the founder and CEO of digital healthcare company Babylon Health and the co-founder and fo ...
and consultant ophthalmologist
Massoud Fouladi. It said that it wanted to be a model "a little bit like
John Lewis
John Robert Lewis (February 21, 1940 – July 17, 2020) was an American politician and civil rights activist who served in the United States House of Representatives for from 1987 until his death in 2020. He participated in the 1960 Nashville ...
" or a law firm, and referred to itself as a "
partnership
A partnership is an arrangement where parties, known as business partners, agree to cooperate to advance their mutual interests. The partners in a partnership may be individuals, businesses, interest-based organizations, schools, governments o ...
". The flattened organisational structure was said to allow quality and efficiency to remain high, through the creation of "clinical units". In January 2010,
Gordon Brown
James Gordon Brown (born 20 February 1951) is a British former politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Labour Party (UK), Leader of the Labour Party from 2007 to 2010. He previously served as Chance ...
, as Prime Minister, said: "Circle's provision of healthcare from the private sector is crucial to a 21st century health service."
The company's plans were ambitious, involving opening 30 private hospitals, and encompassing the possibility of running 30 NHS trusts in time. In October 2009 it was shortlisted to become the first franchisee of an
NHS trust
An NHS trust is an organisational unit within the National Health Services of England and Wales, generally serving either a geographical area or a specialised function (such as an ambulance service). In any particular location there may be several ...
. It raised £200million from investors and had an
initial public offering
An initial public offering (IPO) or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail (individual) investors. An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investment ...
on AIM,
with the shares peaking at £2.
In 2015, Circle entered a £50M deal with
Tech Mahindra
Tech Mahindra is an Indian multinational information technology services and consulting company. Part of the Mahindra Group, the company is headquartered in Pune and has its registered office in Mumbai. Tech Mahindra is a 6.0 billion company w ...
to improve IT infrastructure and applications.
In October 2015, Circle entered an agreement with Advanced Oncotherapy to open a proton beam therapy cancer centre on
Harley Street
Harley Street is a street in Marylebone, Central London, which has, since the 19th century housed a large number of private specialists in medicine and surgery. It was named after Edward Harley, 2nd Earl of Oxford and Earl Mortimer.< ...
, London.
In April 2017, work began on a third private hospital, in Birmingham.
As Circle Integrated Care, it has had a prime provider contract to manage musculoskeletal services in Bedfordshire since 2014 and a £74M deal to oversee musculoskeletal services in Greenwich began in April 2017.
The company announced in December 2012, that Ali Parsa had stepped down as chief executive.
Steve Melton assumed the position until November 2016. Paolo Pieri, a former finance director of
lastminute.com, is now chief executive.
Expansion
In November 2016, Circle announced that it is it to develop hospitals in China in conjunction with Chinese investors. In April 2019, it opened a £23m hospital in Shanghai. The hospital provides access to multi-disciplinary teams including specialists outside China.
In November 2019, the ''Financial Times'' reported that Circle would acquire the holding company of
BMI Healthcare
BMI Healthcare was an independent provider of private healthcare, offering treatment to private patients, medically insured patients, and NHS patients. , it had 54 private hospitals and healthcare facilities across the UK, with headquarters in ...
, the biggest private hospital provider in the UK with 54 hospitals; the cost of the acquisition was not disclosed.
The deal was called in by the
Competition and Markets Authority
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is the competition regulator in United Kingdom. It is a non-ministerial government department in the United Kingdom, responsible for strengthening business competition and preventing and reducing anti-com ...
in December 2019, resulting in the enlarged company agreeing in June 2020 to divest Circle's hospital near Bath and the new hospital at Birmingham, which had not at that time been put into operation.
Corporate structure
Private ownership
In 2017, the company was taken private by
Toscafund Asset Management
Toscafund Asset Management is a London-based specialist investment firm which is a major investor in Circle Health Ltd.
It has assets of £4 billion. The Chief Executive is ex Tiger Management employee, Martin Hughes, nicknamed, according to ''Th ...
and its affiliate Penta Capital. Previously, the company had been listed on the
Alternative Investment Market
AIM (formerly the Alternative Investment Market) is a sub-market of the London Stock Exchange that was launched on 19 June 1995 as a replacement to the previous Unlisted Securities Market (USM) that had been in operation since 1980. It allows ...
. Its initial public offering in June 2011 which raised £45M had valued the company at £95.4M. In June 2012 it raised £47.5M through a placing of shares with institutional investors.
In December 2013, the company secured £25M of new funding and overhauled its corporate structure to grant its employees and NHS staff working at its sites direct access to its publicly traded shares.
During its time on AIM, as Circle Holdings, investors included
Odey Asset Management,
Lansdowne Partners
Sir Paul Martin Ruddock, (born 28 August 1958) is a British businessman, philanthropist and patron of the arts. He is a former Chairman of the Victoria & Albert Museum and Chairman of the University of Oxford Endowment.
Early life and educatio ...
,
Balderton Capital
Balderton Capital is a venture capital firm based in London, UK, that invests in early-stage, technology and internet startup companies in Europe. It is considered to be among the four-biggest venture capital firms in the English capital.
Foun ...
,
BlackRock
BlackRock, Inc. is an American Multinational corporation, multi-national investment company based in New York City. Founded in 1988, initially as a Enterprise risk management, risk management and fixed income institutional asset manager, BlackR ...
,
Invesco Perpetual
Invesco, based in Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire, is one of the largest investment managers in the United Kingdom, managing £91.59bn in assets on behalf of individual clients, fund platforms, nominees, pension funds and other corporate institu ...
,
BlueCrest Capital Management
BlueCrest Capital Management is a British-American hedge fund which was founded by British billionaire Michael Platt and American William Reeves in 2000. The New York City-based company has registered offices in Geneva, Singapore, Boston, Con ...
and
Toscafund Asset Management
Toscafund Asset Management is a London-based specialist investment firm which is a major investor in Circle Health Ltd.
It has assets of £4 billion. The Chief Executive is ex Tiger Management employee, Martin Hughes, nicknamed, according to ''Th ...
.
In March 2017, Toscafund proposed to buy all the company shares, valuing the company at £74M.
Circle reported that "the underlying performance of the group improved considerably during 2018", making an
EBITDAR profit of £12.3M, up from £6.7M the year before, although the company had an overall loss of £11M as a result of "exceptional costs ... relating to the impairment of intangible assets and goodwill".
As part of Circle's 2019 acquisition of the larger BMI Healthcare group, American healthcare company
Centene (through its subsidiary MH Services) took a 40% stake in Circle Health Holdings.
Employee ownership until 2017
Initially, the company operated an equity incentive program under which doctors were offered equity in the company in return for a share of the consultants’ private work, which was said to be "pivotal in raising capital from third party debt and equity investors". Circle employees were offered shares in the company for free, providing they met performance criteria. Consultant and staff ownership reduced to 25% after paying off £257M in borrowings in 2013, and those shares were bought in 2017 by Toscafund and Penta Capital.
In 2014, Circle won "Employee-Owned Business of the Year" at the Employee Ownership Association Philip Baxendale awards, while a report by the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Employee Ownership referenced "impressive" productivity statistics from Circle but noted that "the argument that these successes derive not from the ownership model, but from an engaged workforce". Speaking at Hinchingbrooke hospital,
Francis Maude
Francis Anthony Aylmer Maude, Baron Maude of Horsham, (born 4 July 1953) is a British Conservative Party politician and life peer who served as Minister of State for Trade and Investment from 2015 to 2016, having previously served as Minister ...
, the
Cabinet Office
The Cabinet Office is a department of His Majesty's Government responsible for supporting the prime minister and Cabinet. It is composed of various units that support Cabinet committees and which co-ordinate the delivery of government objecti ...
Minister, described the Circle model as "a third option which goes beyond the monopoly of state provision or the private sector". The British Medical Journal's description of Circle as "a John Lewis-style social enterprise co-owned by its employees" was challenged by Prof
Martin McKee
Clifford Martin McKee, CBE (born 12 July 1956), is professor of European public health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
Biography
He was educated at the Royal Belfast Academical Institution and trained as a doctor at ...
: "Staff shares amount to only 49% of the total number of shares, and the staff’s decision-making powers are far less than even this suggests". However, the Nuffield Trust found "the company’s participative management style – based on devolving power and responsibility to the frontline –
o be
O, or o, is the fifteenth letter and the fourth vowel letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''o'' (pronounced ), pl ...
important in terms of motivating staff", while the King's Fund found that Circle was "developing the leadership skills and technical expertise for staff to test and implement service change".
Centres
Circle Bath
A private hospital designed by
Foster and Partners
Foster + Partners is a British architectural, engineering, and integrated design practice founded in 1967 as Foster Associates by Norman Foster. It is the largest architectural firm in the UK with over 1,500 employees in 13 studios worldwide.
...
that opened in 2010 at
Peasedown St John
Peasedown St John (commonly referred to as Peasedown) is a village and civil parish in Somerset, England, standing on a hilltop roughly south-southwest of the city of Bath, and north-east of the town of Radstock at the foot of the Mendip Hills. ...
, near
Bath. In 2017, Circle Bath received a rating of Good from the CQC, and won a Wylde IA Happiest Workplace in the South West competition. Following the agreement with the Competition and Markets Authority, the hospital was bought by the
NHS
The National Health Service (NHS) is the umbrella term for the publicly funded healthcare systems of the United Kingdom (UK). Since 1948, they have been funded out of general taxation. There are three systems which are referred to using the " ...
in June 2021, and became a subsidiary of Bath's Royal United Hospital under a new name – Sulis Hospital.
Circle Reading
A private hospital that opened in August 2012 at Kennet Island,
Reading
Reading is the process of taking in the sense or meaning of Letter (alphabet), letters, symbols, etc., especially by Visual perception, sight or Somatosensory system, touch.
For educators and researchers, reading is a multifaceted process invo ...
. Circle Reading has a 2019 rating of Good from the CQC.
Circle Birmingham
In 2017, Circle began construction of a private hospital at
Edgbaston
Edgbaston () is an affluent suburban area of central Birmingham, England, historically in Warwickshire, and curved around the southwest of the city centre.
In the 19th century, the area was under the control of the Gough-Calthorpe family an ...
, Birmingham, on part of the site of the former
BBC Pebble Mill
Pebble Mill Studios was the BBC's television studio complex located in Edgbaston, Birmingham, England, United Kingdom, which served as the headquarters for BBC Birmingham from 1971 until 2004. The nine-acre site was opened by Princess Anne o ...
studios, and financed through an arrangement with American real estate investment trust
Medical Properties Trust
Medical Properties Trust, Inc., based in Birmingham, Alabama, is a real estate investment trust that invests in healthcare facilities subject to NNN leases. The company owns 438 properties in the United States, Australia, Colombia, Germany, Italy ...
. At a reported cost of £50M, its 120 rehabilitation beds were expected to create 250 jobs. Opening of the facility was delayed by the
COVID-19 pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...
, and it was not yet operational when Circle agreed in 2020 to divest it as a condition of the acquisition of the BMI hospitals.
Nottingham NHS Treatment Centre
This was opened as the largest
independent sector treatment centre
Independent sector treatment centres (ISTCs) are private-sector owned treatment centres contracted within the English National Health Service to treat NHS patients free at the point of use. They are sometimes referred to as 'surgicentres' or ‘sp ...
in Britain, as part of a programme of reforms to the NHS which aimed at introducing choice by increasing the diversification of providers. It was operated by Circle between 2008 and 2019. In 2010, the centre was visited by
Andrew Lansley
Andrew David Lansley, Baron Lansley, (born 11 December 1956) is a British Conservative Party (UK), Conservative politician who previously served as Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, Secretary of State for Health and Leader of the H ...
, who said: "The fundamental thing is, is it providing a good care to patients on the basis of NHS principles? Yes it is." It reportedly made a profit of £4M in the six-month period to 30 June 2013, up from £2.5M for the same period the previous year.
In 2013, when Circle's five-year contract expired, commissioners decided to reconfigure services in the area.
Circle had run outpatient dermatology services for the Nottingham area since 2008, with a mix of staff seconded from Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust and those directly employed.
[ Circle's contract was renewed but the dermatology services were redesigned by Rushcliffe Clinical Commissioning Group, on behalf of all the Nottinghamshire commissioners, "based on its own specification".][ In December 2014, it was announced that six of the eight consultants had left rather than transfer to Circle, while recruitment and retention was a problem for NHS hospitals across the East Midlands. David Eady, President of the British Association of Dermatologists, described dermatology nationally as "a specialty in crisis" and that "no single region in Britain has enough consultants" to meet Royal College of Physicians recommendations, which meant Circle replaced them initially with locum doctors, for whom Circle had to pay nearly £300,000 per year per consultant.][
In 2015, the operation of dermatology services during the period in which they were run by Circle Health was described as an "unmitigated disaster" in an independent report commissioned by the CCG and undertaken by Dr Chris Clough of Kings College Hospital, London. The ]British Association of Dermatologists
The British Association of Dermatologists is a charity established in 1920 whose charitable objects are the practice, teaching, training, and research of dermatology. It produces the ''British Journal of Dermatology
The ''British Journal of De ...
stated that it was "very concerned by the decline of services in Nottingham from a centre of excellence to somewhere now unable to offer expert dermatology, dermatological care for patients... and now its failure to deliver teaching to trainees and medical students". An inspection by the CQC in January 2015 had rated the centre as 'good' overall, although the termination of pregnancy service required improvement; a follow-up inspection in May 2016 rated that service as 'good'.
In 2018, local commissioners extended Circle's contract after a legal challenge. The following year the centre, which has 700 staff and treats around 250,000 patients annually, was taken over by Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust
Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust (NUH) is one of England's largest acute teaching trusts. It was established on 1 April 2006 following the merger of Nottingham City Hospital and the Queen's Medical Centre NHS Trusts. They provide acute ...
.
Circle Clinic Stratford
This clinic attached to a GP practice in Stratford-upon-Avon
Stratford-upon-Avon (), commonly known as just Stratford, is a market town and civil parish in the Stratford-on-Avon district, in the county of Warwickshire, in the West Midlands region of England. It is situated on the River Avon, north-we ...
was run by Circle Clinics Limited, but in June 2014 it was announced that SWFT Clinical Services, a subsidiary of South Warwickshire NHS Foundation Trust
South Warwickshire University NHS Foundation Trust, formerly South Warwickshire NHS Foundation Trust, runs Warwick Hospital which has 350 beds and provides inpatient, outpatient and diagnostic services. The trust also runs Stratford Hospital whe ...
, was to take it over as Circle had stopped providing services at the clinic in April to focus on inpatient services.
Hinchingbrooke Hospital
In November 2011, Circle won a ten-year contract to run the struggling NHS Hinchingbrooke Hospital
Hinchingbrooke Hospital is a small district general hospital in Hinchingbrooke near Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire. Opened in 1983, it serves the Huntingdonshire area, and has a range of specialities as well as an emergency department and a materni ...
in Cambridgeshire. The hospital's buildings and staff remained part of the NHS, while Circle took over all day-to-day management responsibilities. Dr Stephen Dunn, director of policy and strategy at NHS Midlands and East, described it as "a good solution, focused on local needs." In an opinion piece for ''The Guardian'', he said that "Without this deal, services might have been cut, the hospital might have had to close, or an £80M subsidy might have been needed to support the existing management." The contract began in February 2012.
In a 2012 national survey of NHS patients, Hinchingbrooke Hospital came first for patient satisfaction. The Prime Minister's former special advisor on health commented in the ''Daily Telegraph'' that these results, along with improved care and reduced waiting times, had shown "the right kind of reform can turn around shoddy government monopolies and transform them into huge success stories". However, during 2012 losses doubled, and Circle obtained a £4M advance on fees to ease cash flow problems at the hospital. For the Conservative Party
The Conservative Party is a name used by many political parties around the world. These political parties are generally right-wing though their exact ideologies can range from center-right to far-right.
Political parties called The Conservative P ...
this was seen as a test case for private sector contracting.
Following the early successes at Hinchingbrooke, where it appeared the hospital had attracted some orthopaedic surgery from Addenbrookes Hospital
Addenbrooke's Hospital is an internationally renowned large teaching hospital and research centre in Cambridge, England, with strong affiliations to the University of Cambridge. Addenbrooke's Hospital is based on the Cambridge Biomedical Campu ...
, Circle stated that they would like to bid for more NHS contracts.
In November 2012, a National Audit Office (NAO) report into the franchise was published. It found that while Circle had made early improvements in some clinical areas, the in-year deficit was already £2.2M higher than planned. Circle would have to generate unprecedented levels of savings to pay the deficit and most of the savings were expected in the later years of the ten-year franchise, so the value for money of the project could not easily be assessed for some time. The NAO found that while NHS East of England
NHS East of England was a strategic health authority of the National Health Service in England. It operated in the East of England region, which is coterminous with the local government office region. The authority closed on 31 March 2013 as pa ...
had assessed bidders’ savings proposals, the relative risks had not been fully considered, which had the potential to encourage over-optimistic bids.
Matters started to deteriorate further. In the 2013 NHS staff survey involving 28 key findings, Hinchingbrooke came out worse than the NHS average on two-thirds of the findings (19 of them), and was in the lowest 20% of trusts in almost half of the findings (13 of them). In February 2013 The Health Service Journal reported that senior health figures were questioning the viability of using the model more widely in hospitals. They cited austerity and the need to reduce activity in hospitals as key drivers.
In December 2013, the company announced that it expected its Hinchingbrooke contract to finish at or near break-even by the end of its financial year. The Care Quality Commission had inspected the hospital and were satisfied. Waiting times in the A&E department were reported to be among the best in England and Dr Foster revealed the hospital has a “statistically significant low mortality rate”
In April 2014, it was reported that the hospital was likely to record a deficit in the region of £600,000 to £700,000 for the year ending 31 March 2014 and in July 2014 Hinchingbrooke Hospital was referred to the Secretary of State for Health
The secretary of state for health and social care, also referred to as the health secretary, is a secretary of state in the Government of the United Kingdom, responsible for the work of the Department of Health and Social Care. The incumbent ...
for failure to meet their statutory duty to break-even financially.
The hospital made an offer in September 2014 to pay local GPs a £50 'administrative fee' for surgery referrals in an email, signed by Hinchingbrooke chief executive Hisham Abdel-Rahman, which was rapidly withdrawn when the company was accused of bribery.
A visit by inspectors from the CQC in the same month highlighted severe issues with patient care: inspectors observed that "staff treat patients in an undignified and emotionally abusive manner" and they spoke to patients who had been "told to soil themselves".
In November 2014, Jenny Raine the chief financial officer left. UNISON
In music, unison is two or more musical parts that sound either the same pitch or pitches separated by intervals of one or more octaves, usually at the same time. ''Rhythmic unison'' is another term for homorhythm.
Definition
Unison or per ...
called for Circle to be 'sacked', claiming that papers tabled for the Board meeting in October – which did not include a financial report – showed the organisation faced (i) potential penalties of up to £200,000 per month for failure to meet targets for patients waiting longer than four hours in the accident and emergency department (ii) potential penalties for failing to reach electronic discharge summary targets which already stood at £138,000 and (iii) potential penalties of a further £150,000 for failing to increase the number of patients discharged at weekends. The union said staff turnover was more than 13 per cent.
In January 2015, Circle announced that because Hinchingbrooke Hospital was "no longer inanciallyviable under current terms" it wanted to withdraw from operating the hospital under the exit terms of the ten-year contract. Later the same day, the CQC recommended the trust be placed into special measures after it was rated "inadequate" on the questions of whether it was caring, safe and well led. They had concerns about the trust's leadership because both the Circle management team and the trust board said that the other was responsible for holding the trust's executive team to account. Circle's chief executive Steve Melton said before the report was published: “We understand their report will be published soon, and fully expect it to be unbalanced and to disagree with many of its conclusions". The CQC later accepted that it had made 200 mistakes in its report.
The report was critical of standards of care and hygiene, indicating that "Medical services were inadequate because we found poor emotional and physical care which was not safe or caring. This was not reported by leaders of the service to the trust management therefore we judged the leadership to be inadequate." It was the worst rating for 'caring' that the CQC had ever given. The period in which Circle was operating the hospital was described as "a disaster" by the GMB union
The GMB is a general trade union in the United Kingdom which has more than 460,000 members. Its members work in nearly all industrial sectors, in retail, security, schools, distribution, the utilities, social care, the National Health Service (N ...
. The then chairman of the British Medical Association
The British Medical Association (BMA) is a registered trade union for doctors in the United Kingdom. The association does not regulate or certify doctors, a responsibility which lies with the General Medical Council. The association's headquar ...
remarked that "What has happened in Hinchingbrooke shows that the responsibility of running a critical public service can never be handed over, and so the insistence on private providers as a potential solution to problems facing Hinchingbrooke was always misguided."
Awards
In 2015, Circle became Private Hospital Group of the Year at the LaingBuisson
LaingBuisson is a business intelligence provider across health, care and education, headquartered in Angel, London. It provides insights, data and analysis of market structures, policy and strategy and is the chosen provider of independent sector h ...
Awards. In 2017, a Circle initiative won The Prince of Wales' Integrated Approaches to Care Nursing Times Award, and in 2018, Circle won Best Healthcare Provider to the NHS at the Health Service Journal
''Health Service Journal'' (''HSJ'') is a news service that covers policy and management in the National Health Service (NHS) in England.
History
The '' Poor Law Officers' Journal'' was established in 1892. In 1930, it changed its name after ...
Partnership Awards.
References
External links
*
Briefing on Circle by NHS for Sale group
{{Authority control
Private providers of NHS services
Health care companies of the United Kingdom
Centene Corporation