Private equity firms are showing continued strong interest in the UK's private healthcare market. This follows Spire Healthcare, the country's largest private hospital operator with 38 hospitals, agreeing to a £1bn takeover by Toscafund Asset Management on Sunday. This deal comes after UK healthcare property firm Assura received a takeover offer of around £1.7bn from KKR and Stonepeak in June.
The surge in activity within the private health market is attributed to rising NHS waiting lists following the Covid pandemic. As of June, the total NHS waiting list in England was approximately 7.27 million cases. Tom Whelan, a partner at law firm Reed Smith, noted that private healthcare is a resilient market, serving a mix of private pay, insured patients, and NHS work.
City lawyers anticipate that the demand for private healthcare will persist in the UK, given the ongoing issues within the NHS. The Institute of Health and Social Care Professionals (IHPN) stated that private healthcare providers are now treating record numbers of both NHS and private patients. IHPN research indicates that four in ten people expect to use private healthcare in the coming year, with almost half of 25–34-year-olds having already done so.
Businesses are increasingly offering private healthcare insurance as an employee benefit, a trend observed in 2024 and expected to continue. This rise in patients, both those paying privately and those with insurance, is contributing to increased revenues and profits for private healthcare providers, making them attractive to private equity investors. Spire Healthcare reported a total group revenue of £1.5bn for the 2025 financial year, a 4.5 per cent increase from the previous year, with 43 per cent of its revenue from private medical insurance.