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An NHS trust is taking over a state-of-the-art hospital from a leading private healthcare group after it failed to attract enough paying patients to use it.
Barts Health trust in London will turn Nuffield Health’s facility into a dedicated 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 for 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 grow 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 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 more than 900 years old is widely thought to be England’s oldest hospital.
The closure raises questions over whether private healthcare is enjoying the boom in the UK that market analysts have predicted amid long waits for NHS treatment.
It has also left an estimated 180 nurses and other clinical staff at Nuffield’s hospital facing the threat of redundancy when it shuts its doors next Wednesday.
“We don’t want to gloat about this, because we’ve had a good partnership with Nuffield Health. But these two buildings have fallen into our lap. It’s like a windfall,” said a Barts trust source. “We leased them two derelict buildings and are getting back two modern, fully equipped hospitals.”
The buildings have 55 beds, three operating theatres, consulting rooms and CT and MRI scanners. It is thought to be the first time the NHS has inherited ready-to-use health facilities in this way.
The Barts Charity is giving the trust £16.6m – its biggest donation ever – to cover the costs of converting the premises into the breast cancer centre, which is due to open in January. It will be “a transformative moment for the health of people in east London,” said Fiona Miller Smith, the charity’s chief executive.
It is unknown how much the trust is giving Nuffield Health for the lease.
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Nuffield Health, a registered charity that also runs gyms, makes almost £1.5bn a year in income, with just over £1bn of that coming from its network of 36 – soon to be 35 – hospitals.
It has given little detail about why it decided to shut the hospital. A brief statement on its website says simply that it will be “selling back the lease of our hospital at St Bartholomew’s to Barts Health NHS trust, with the handover planned for December 2025”.
A well-placed source said Nuffield had made “a commercial decision to pull out of its flagship London hospital” after its expectations of an increasing number of patients were not realised. A source said the closure showed that the capital has more private health capacity than people willing to pay.
Alex Perry, Nuffield Health’s chief executive, said its exit “marks a positive conclusion to our partnership with [Barts] trust”. It plans to expand the range of services it offers at its other London facilities and care for its Barts site patients there.
A spokesperson for the group said: “Nuffield Health has agreed to sell back our lease on part of St Bartholomew’s hospital to Bart’s Health NHS trust. This decision reflects how our London hospital portfolio has evolved and allows us to focus investment on high quality care in our other London hospitals that we’ve acquired since initiating the Barts project.”
It hopes to redeploy some of the staff to other premises and help others find jobs with other private healthcare providers in the capital. Barts Health said it hoped to employ some of the nurses to help staff the breast cancer centre.
