 | |
| Formerly | Care UK |
|---|---|
| Type | Private |
| Industry | Healthcare |
| Founded | 2019 |
| Parent | Bridgepoint Group |
| Website | practiceplusgroup |
Practice Plus Group is a healthcare company based in Reading, Berkshire, which is England's largest independent provider of NHS services.
Practice Plus Group was founded as Care UK in 1982 and rebranded in 2020. It is owned by Bridgepoint Group.
In November 2023, Practice Plus Group won Laing Buisson's 'Hospital Group of the Year' award. [1]
Practice Plus Group offers private patient treatment [2] at its hospitals. Its website advertises prices of up to 30% less than other private hospitals. They specialise in hip, knee and cataract surgery.
Their Secondary Care service operates six hospitals, three surgical centres, two musculoskeletal services, two Urgent Treatment Centres (providing direct walk in access for the assessment and treatment of injury and illness on a no appointment basis, or with patients being referred via the NHS 111 service) and delivers ophthalmology services throughout England. Through these centres they treat 80,000 NHS patients each year. The hospitals and surgical centres cover a range of specialties, [3] including orthopaedics, endoscopy, ophthalmology, urology, gynaecology, oral and general surgery. Most centres also offer diagnostic imaging, such as X-rays and MRI, CT and Ultrasound scans.
Practice Plus Group’s Integrated Urgent Care division brings together NHS 111 call centres, clinical assessment, out-of-hours service and other urgent care services. [4]
The company is also commissioned by NHS England to provide healthcare in over 45 prisons, from reception health checks on arrival and regular GP services, to help with substance misuse, mental health, chronic or long-term conditions, podiatry, physiotherapy and optometry. [5]
In November 2023 it was reported that a prison doctor employed by Practice Plus Group has refused to prescribe Sarah Jane Baker oestogen, saying they would only prescribe testosterone, which the Free Sarah Jane Baker campaign said "amounts to a medical detransition". A company spokesperson said they were "fully committed to providing appropriate care for trans patients." [6] [7]
Practice Plus Group currently delivers more than 70 dedicated NHS services and treats over a million patients every year, meeting a wide range of healthcare needs.
They are regulated by the Care Quality Commission and use the same strict governance and accountability procedures as the NHS. [8]
An emergency department (ED), also known as an accident and emergency department (A&E), emergency room (ER), emergency ward (EW) or casualty department, is a medical treatment facility specializing in emergency medicine, the acute care of patients who present without prior appointment; either by their own means or by that of an ambulance. The emergency department is usually found in a hospital or other primary care center.
General practice is the name given in various nations, such as the United Kingdom, India, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa to the services provided by general practitioners. In some nations, such as the US, similar services may be described as family medicine or primary care. The term Primary Care in the UK may also include services provided by community pharmacy, optometrist, dental surgery and community hearing care providers. The balance of care between primary care and secondary care - which usually refers to hospital based services - varies from place to place, and with time. In many countries there are initiatives to move services out of hospitals into the community, in the expectation that this will save money and be more convenient.
An urgent care center (UCC), also known as an urgent treatment centre (UTC) in the United Kingdom, is a type of walk-in clinic focused on the delivery of urgent ambulatory care in a dedicated medical facility outside of a traditional emergency department located within a hospital. Urgent care centers primarily treat injuries or illnesses requiring immediate care, but not serious enough to require an ED visit. In the United Kingdom, urgent treatment centres are provided by the National Health Service, which decided in 2019 that all areas of England should be served by a network of urgent treatment centres. In the United States, urgent care centers were first used in the 1970s and have since expanded to approximately 10,000 centers across the country.
Independent sector treatment centres (ISTCs) are private-sector owned treatment centres contracted within the English National Health Service to treat NHS patients free at the point of use. They are sometimes referred to as 'surgicentres' or ‘specialist hospitals’. ISTCs are often co-located with NHS hospitals. They perform common elective surgery and diagnostic procedures and tests. Typically they undertake 'bulk' surgery such as hip replacements, cataract operations or MRI scans rather than more complex operations such as neurosurgery.
Netcare Limited is a South African private healthcare company. It operates through a number of subsidiaries and employs just over 21 000 people.
An eye care professional is an individual who provides a service related to the eyes or vision. It is any healthcare worker involved in eye care, from one with a small amount of post-secondary training to practitioners with a doctoral level of education.
NHS Grampian is an NHS board which forms one of the fourteen regional health boards of NHS Scotland. It is responsible for proving health and social care services to a population of over 500,000 people living in Aberdeen, Aberdeenshire and Moray.
Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust is an NHS trust based in London, England. It is one of the largest NHS trusts in England and together with Imperial College London forms an academic health science centre.
The National Health Service (NHS) is the publicly funded healthcare system in England, and one of the four National Health Service systems in the United Kingdom. It is the second largest single-payer healthcare system in the world after the Brazilian Sistema Único de Saúde. Primarily funded by the government from general taxation, and overseen by the Department of Health and Social Care, the NHS provides healthcare to all legal English residents and residents from other regions of the UK, with most services free at the point of use for most people. The NHS also conducts research through the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR).
Healthcare in England is mainly provided by the National Health Service (NHS), a public body that provides healthcare to all permanent residents in England, that is free at the point of use. The body is one of four forming the UK National Health Service as health is a devolved matter; there are differences with the provisions for healthcare elsewhere in the United Kingdom, and in England it is overseen by NHS England. Though the public system dominates healthcare provision in England, private health care and a wide variety of alternative and complementary treatments are available for those willing and able to pay.
Healthcare in Wales is mainly provided by the Welsh public health service, NHS Wales. NHS Wales provides healthcare to all permanent residents that is free at the point of need and paid for from general taxation. Health is a matter that is devolved, and considerable differences are now developing between the public healthcare systems in the different countries of the United Kingdom, collectively the National Health Service (NHS). Though the public system dominates healthcare provision, private health care and a wide variety of alternative and complementary treatments are available for those willing to pay.
The Healthcare Quality Improvement Partnership (HQIP) was established in April 2008 to promote improvement in health services, by increasing the impact that clinical audit has on healthcare quality in England and Wales and, in some cases other devolved nations. It is led by a consortium of the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges, Royal College of Nursing and National Voices.
Care UK is a provider of residential care for older people. They operate more than 150 homes offering residential care, dementia care, and nursing care. The company formerly also operated a wider range of healthcare services until 2019 when these were split off to Practice Plus Group, private-equity firm Bridgepoint Group retaining ultimate control over both companies.
Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust is an NHS foundation trust which provides hospital and community health services in North Tyneside and hospital, community health and adult social care services in Northumberland.
Vanguard Healthcare Solutions Ltd. is a provider of mobile and modular healthcare solutions based in Gloucester.
Healthcare in London, which consumes about a fifth of the NHS budget in England, is in many respects distinct from that in the rest of the United Kingdom, or England.
Healthcare in Dorset was primarily the responsibility of Dorset Clinical Commissioning Group until July 2022. Dorset County Council is leading in the development of an electronic health record, to be called the Dorset Care Record, provided by Orion Health. It is intended to enable all health and social care providers to share records.
Private healthcare in the UK, where universal state-funded healthcare is provided by the National Health Service, is a niche market.
Lakeside Healthcare Groupwhich operates from a number of sites across Cambridgeshire, Lincolnshire and Northamptonshire, is one of the biggest General practice / Primary Care Providers in the National Health Service with 80 partners and almost 200,000 patients.
The private provision of NHS services has been considered a controversial topic since the early 1990s. Keep Our NHS Public, NHS Support Federation and other groups have campaigned against the threat of privatisation, largely in England.