Private equity firms have bought up dozens of UK healthcare companies including ambulance fleets, eye-care clinics and diagnostics businesses over the past two years as they seek to cash in on spiralling NHS waiting lists.

Private equity firms have struck 150 deals for UK healthcare companies since 2021, according to consultancy LaingBuisson, with the past two years the highest in terms of volume since at least 2014.

Tim Read, director of research at LaingBuisson, said private equity firms were increasingly buying up “organisations that are an integral part of healthcare delivery”.

“The pandemic has demonstrated the value of investing in healthcare services as it showed the resilience of operators which are underpinned by public funding.”

  • ᴇᴍᴘᴇʀᴏʀ 帝OPA
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    1 year ago

    Pretty much.

    They wreck chunks of it and then pay their mates to pick up the slack, despite the most efficient use of public money being in ensuring there is no slack.