A private equity firm just bought £1.6 BILLION worth of the NHS

15 comments

1. It’s buildings.
   Over 600 buildings used by the NHS were owned by the same landlord, and now that landlord has sold them to a US private equity company.

   So lucky it’s not private equity actually getting it’s fingers into the operation of the NHS, but they’ll probably start costing the tax payer through massive rent rises on all those buildings

2. This is the kind of thing that it makes so much economic sense for the state to borrow for and buy, since it saves decades of rent and overheads for the NHS. And yet right wing economic dogma dictates such thinking as pie in the sky kooky nonsense. What’s the value that private ownership of this land is adding??

3. Yep, and watch as small clinics begin to close and car parking charges hit the roof. I can’t see how any private company owning NHS land/premises is a good idea. Of course they want to make money. And it’ll be the UK tax payers that’ll have to pay up in the end. After their local services have been stripped, and the buildings made into million pound flats.

4. You will own nothing and be happy.

   Thatcher may have put a bandage on a problem this country was facing in the late 70s but the direct result is this eventually.

   Soon the UK and its government will run out of things to sell. They could have *rented* these to the NHS to help *pay* for the NHS, instead a private equity firm will *charge* the government to use them. Circling the drain here. We are just the 51st State.

5. Thank God the Scottish Parliament is in charge of S-NHS we did away with charges for parking. No wonder so many from England come to settle in Scotland we are so far in front of so many areas like free universities.

6. Part of me thinks hospitals and similar buildings should be limited by law on rent

7. And this ladies and gentlemen is precisely why you never sell your assets…

8. I’ve taken out Bupa now – 3 weeks for an appointment at my local GP practice, at 32 I can’t risk finding something like a lump and waiting weeks and months and being fobbed off. I pay god knows how much in tax and NI and would be happy to pay more for a better service, but it feels years or decades away.

   Private health cover costs just over £30 a month and I can speak to a GP on the phone same day or next day for free. Recommend it.

9. Tax wealth not work.

   Why the fuck are we paying to rent our own bloody hospitals!!!!

10. The government should own those buildings.

11. Sorry, what?

12. Equity firms are the death of a business. Always see them buy things then squeeze every single penny they can out of them and then leave them to die.

13. To be clear, as I am seeing a lot of uninformed comments in this thread. It’s just the buildings being sold, the operations remain with the current GPs/other healthcare operators. It’s the same as companies like PHP, Triple Point, Target Healthcare REIT etc – the operators rent the use of the buildings from the property company.

    The rental contracts are also long-dated, c. 11 yrs WAULT for Assura and are indexed to inflation typically with a cap and collar (2-4%), so they won’t be able to “charge sky high rents” and even if they could the tenant would just leave for another provider anyway so it would be pointless.

    It’s just a bond-like, secure income investment. It’s actually quite normal in this sector.

14. Ah conservative economics, the ponzi scheme that just keeps on taking.

15. Misleading headline as usual that is meant to cause uproar because most people don’t read the article.

Comments are closed.