NHS trust takes over private hospital that failed to attract enough paying patients

An NHS trust is taking over a fully equipped, state-of-the-art hospital from a leading private health group that failed to attract enough paying patients to use it.

- Denis Campbell Health policy editor

(ALEX SEGRE/ALAMY)

Barts Health trust in London will turn Nuffield Health's facility into an NHS breast cancer diagnosis and treatment centre when it gains control next month.

The not-for-profit private health operator took a 30-year lease on two dilapidated empty Barts trust buildings in 2022 and spent £65m refurbishing them as a hospital for heart disease and joint problems.

But it has decided to shut the hospital next week, less than four years into an arrangement that was intended to increase its business and generate millions of pounds in rental income for Barts Health. It is selling the lease back to the NHS trust, where senior figures are delighted that Nuffield's setback has resulted in what one called "a windfall" and a chance to expand the care it provides.

The two buildings face each other beside St Bartholomew's NHS hospital in the City of London, which at over 900 years old is widely thought to be England's oldest hospital.