Not-for-profit, limited by guarantee | |
Industry | Healthcare |
Founded | 1957 |
Headquarters | Epsom, United Kingdom |
Key people
|
Steve Gray, CEO |
Products | Hospitals, medical centres, health clinics, fitness and wellbeing gyms, rehabilitation centres, physiotherapy, nutritional therapy, occupational health, employee wellbeing |
Revenue | £711 million GBP (2014) |
Number of employees
|
11,000 |
Website | www |
Nuffield Health is the largest not-for-profit healthcare provider in the United Kingdom. Established in 1957 the charity operates 31 Nuffield Health Hospitals and 111 Nuffield Health Fitness & Wellbeing Gyms.
It is independent of the National Health Service and is constituted as a registered charity. Its objectives are to 'advance, promote and maintain health and healthcare of all descriptions and to prevent, relieve and cure sickness and ill health of any kind, all for the public benefit.'
As a private provider, fees are charged to patients. In 2014 Nuffield Health had an annual gross income of £711 million, making it one of the five largest charities in the UK.
Nuffield Health operates 300 facilities including 31 private hospitals (29 in England, one in Glasgow, Scotland and a joint venture, Cardiff & Vale, Wales), 111 Fitness and Wellbeing Gyms across the UK, and five medical centres.
On 14 January 1957 the British United Provident Association (BUPA) established the Nursing Homes Charitable Trust to acquire and build community facilities equipped for the demands of modern medicine. In 1959 the President of BUPA suggested the charity might benefit from incorporating his name so was re-registered as the Nuffield Nursing Homes Trust (NNHT).
At this time the Trust purchased the Strathallan nursing home in Bournemouth for £23,150. It was closed for ten months to be refurbished and reopened as the first Nuffield Hospital. In its first ten years, the Trust acquired and modernised a total of six dilapidated nursing homes and built seven new ones, together providing more than 400 beds.
The earliest purpose-built hospital opened at Woking in 1962; others followed at Exeter, Shrewsbury, Hull, Birmingham and Slough. In 1966, the NNHT opened a new flagship hospital in London’s Bryanston Square, at a cost of over half a million pounds. The Trust ran all sites on a strictly self-supporting basis, though non-profit-making lines. Charges from patients were expected to cover not only operating costs but repairs and depreciation.
By 1982 the Nuffield Nursing Homes Trust had grown to 31 hospitals and 1,076 beds. In 1983, the trading name was changed to Nuffield Hospitals, the ‘nursing homes’ element no longer conveyed the focus on modern hospitals rather than nursing homes. A new direction was taken in 2005 when Tweed Park and Sona Fitness were acquired and merged to become Proactive Health, a new business arm providing clinical health services to public and corporate members. In 2007 Cannons Health & Fitness was acquired increasing services to include physiotherapy, weight management and health assessments.