Hospitals sold for £500m as NHS waiting list crisis drives private healthcare demand
by Julia Kollewe from World news | The Guardian on (#6PTPA)
Outsourcing to cut waiting lists prompts healthcare property investor Assura to buy 14 private sites
Assura, a UK healthcare property investor and developer, has struck a 500m deal to buy Canada's Northwest Healthcare Properties' portfolio of 14 private hospitals across the UK, including Cancer Centre London and the Edgbaston hospital in Birmingham.
The deal comes at a time when the NHS is under massive pressure, with near-record waiting lists. The NHS crisis is prompting more people to go private, either paying for treatment themselves or taking out insurance. To clear the backlog, the NHS has been outsourcing more procedures, including cataract surgery, to private clinics.
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