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Health Care 1996
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The information below comes from the UK Activity Report.
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The government has announced almost 70 new proposals that will enable family doctors to improve their services and upgrade their premises, and also bring about the prospect of a new generation of super-surgeries. 18-Dec-1996 Tamaris has been selected as the preferred operator for the United Bank of Kuwait's Guernsey-based Healthcare Fund which will purchase nursing homes for Tamaris to operate. 18-Dec-1996 Craegmoor Group, the residential nursing and healthcare company, has raised £80m in a bond issue in order to reduce debt and fund expansion and acquisitions. 13-Dec-1996 Care UK, the nursing home operator, has increased its number of beds from 317 to 1,090 in the year to September, and plans to reach 1,462 by next September. 13-Dec-1996 Nursing Home Properties, the purchase and leaseback company, has bought 12 nursing and residential homes for £17.8m from Trinity Care and Puretruce. 11-Dec-1996 Unichem, the pharmacists, is planning to set up a family doctor service for the National Health Service, which will include GP services, minor surgery, and dentists, and may involve a health insurer such as Bupa. 09-Dec-1996 Sun Healthcare of the US has made a £95m recommended bid for Ashbourne, the nursing homes group, in a move that will make Exceler Health Care Group, Sun's UK subsidiary, the second biggest nursing home provider in the UK. 05-Dec-1996 Norfolk and Norwich hospital trust has finalised the commercial arrangements for the construction of a £193m, 809-bed hospital, which will be built by a consortium including John Laing and General Healthcare using the government's private finance initiative. 26-Nov-1996 Ashbourne, the nursing home group, says it has been approached by an unnamed potential bidder - some analysts believe it may be Sun Healthcare of the US, which already owns a 29% stake. 26-Nov-1996 TC Group, the care service provider, has cut 33 jobs and moved its head office to Telford since it was created from the merger of Takare and Court Cavendish. 26-Nov-1996 APTA Healthcare, the chain of 33 nursing homes, has recommended a £13.4m takeover offer by Exceler Health Care, which is owned by Sun Health Care of the US. 21-Nov-1996 Bupa is launching a range of health insurance products into Ireland in a challenge to the state-owned Voluntary Health Insurance company. 20-Nov-1996 Crestacare has acquired three residential facilities and three day-care centres from Wandsworth Borough Council for £3.2m. 15-Nov-1996 PPP, the private medical insurer, is setting up a joint venture with Columbia/HCA healthcare in which it will acquire a 50% stake in four of the largest private hospitals in London - the Portland, the Princess Grace, the Harley Street Clinic and the Wellington. 14-Nov-1996 TC Group has won a £9m contract to run three homes for Berkshire County Council social services. 07-Nov-1996 Reuters has acquired Micro Solutions Group, the provider of computer-based healthcare services to doctors. 25-Oct-1996 South Buckinghamshire NHS Trust is to redevelop Amersham hospital and build a new wing at High Wycombe hospital, in a £35m scheme involving the government's private finance initiative, Taylor Woodrow and United Healthcare. 22-Oct-1996 Beechcroft, the retirement housing concern, is to raise £1.9m on the Alternative Investment Market in order to finance expansion. 22-Oct-1996 The government has rejected calls to set up a free-standing statutory inspectorate for nursing and residential homes, saying that regulatory systems should be set up by local authorities. 19-Oct-1996 Health Management Group, a consortium comprising Amec and British & Property, is to build and service a £280m hospital on the site of the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel which will replace the Royal Hospital Trust's four existing hospitals. 17-Oct-1996 Ashbourne has acquired three nursing homes - in Upminster, Bolton and Cambridge - for £5.9m. 17-Oct-1996 The government has announced plans to provide more freedom to GPs and dentists, with health authorities being allowed to set up contracts with doctors to provide services currently located in hospitals. 16-Oct-1996 Bupa is launching a Stress Management Programme which will enable companies to reduce stress-related illness among employees. 15-Oct-1996 APTA Healthcare has bought two specialist units for people with learning disabilities, for £1.1m. 15-Oct-1996 Octagon Health Care, a consortium comprising John Laing and Generale des Eaux, is expected to win a £170m contract to build and operate a district general hospital in Norwich on behalf of Norfolk and Norwich NHS Trust. 14-Oct-1996 Primary Health Properties has bought a doctors surgery in Chorleywood for £980k, as well as a surgery and pharmacy in Droitwich for £850k. 11-Oct-1996 The government has had to delay plans to introduce partnership deals which would have enabled elderly people to protect their assets from the costs of long-term care, due to technical problems about how the scheme will work. 07-Oct-1996 Ashbourne has sold and leased back its 90-bed Rowan Court nursing home in Aberdeen to British Aerospace Pension Fund. 05-Oct-1996 Nursing Home Properties, the nursing home purchase and leaseback company, has bought eight more homes with 470 beds for £16.5m. 03-Oct-1996 Healthcall, the provider of out-of-hours doctors, is to increase its number of primary care centres from 12 last January to 25 by the year-end. 01-Oct-1996 Healthreform Partners is planning to manage a new investment trust called the Healthcare Reform Investment Trust that will aim to raise £20m to invest in under-researched healthcare companies in the US. 23-Sep-1996 East Norfolk and Suffolk health authorities are to withdraw all contracts from Anglian Harbours NHS Trust as it is said to be spending too much on management costs, a move which is likely to lead to the first ever collapse of a National Health Service Trust. 14-Sep-1996 Ashbourne has agreed a £53m loan to enable it to acquire and build more nursing homes. 05-Sep-1996 Life Sciences International is to split into four business groups - laboratory products, clinical products, industrial products and BioSystems. 05-Sep-1996 CrestaCare has seen occupancy levels fall to 85%, and blames local authority reorganisation and the Care in the Community Act. 29-Aug-1996 National Health Service waiting lists rose 0.4% to 1,052,665 in the quarter ending June 1996, although this is seen as a seasonal trend with year-on-year figures still improving. 23-Aug-1996 Takare is to focus on the acquisition of quality nursing homes and scale back the building of new ones, due to slower fill rates for new buildings. 21-Aug-1996 Railtrack is opening a private doctor's surgery at Victoria station in London which will be run by Medicentre, and represents the start of moves to expand its retail, leisure and other services at big stations. 19-Aug-1996 Private medical insurance rose 6% to £1.7bn in 1995, while private hospitals and clinics had a 6% rise in revenue to £1.3bn, according to Laing's Review of Private Healthcare. 14-Aug-1996 Plans for the rebuilding of the Princess Margaret hospital in Swindon using the government's private finance initiative have been hit by funding problems and reports that the project is unfeasible. 12-Aug-1996 Nursing Home Properties has bought a 60-bed nursing home in Bridgend for £1.9m. 08-Aug-1996 Ashbourne is planning to acquire nine more nursing homes over the coming weeks at a cost of £14.1m, bringing its total to 43 with 3,150 beds. 07-Aug-1996 Westminster Healthcare has failed in its attempt to acquire Goldsborough for £70m. 17-Jul-1996 Care UK's CHS Healthcare subsidiary and Grampian Healthcare NHS Trust have been appointed preferred bidder to provide a hospital and nursing home in Stonehaven, Grampian. 06-Jul-1996 Tamaris has acquired four more nursing homes with 170 beds for £4.5m. 03-Jul-1996 The government is planning to allow people to retain £1.50 of assets for every £1 of insurance cover they take out to protect against the costs of residential nursing care in old age. 28-Jun-1996 Nursing Home Properties, the company that specialises in buying and leasing back nursing homes, is to raise £47m in a share placing in order to reduce debt and fund the purchase of more homes. 27-Jun-1996 Norwich Union Healthcare is linking up with Abbey National to sell private medical insurance. 27-Jun-1996 Westminster Healthcare has made a £75m takeover bid for Goldsborough Healthcare, the nursing home operator that has expanded into homecare and acute care hospitals. 18-Jun-1996 Sinclair Montrose Healthcare has joined the Alternative Investment Market, and is planning a walk-in GP surgery in London. 18-Jun-1996 Tamaris is acquiring a 49.9% stake in Continental Shelf 55, a new company which has been set up to acquire the nursing home operator Lodge Care, for £1.6m. 17-Jun-1996 Ashbourne is buying four more nursing homes for £6m, bringing its total to 34. 12-Jun-1996 The number of residential care beds in the UK rose 6,700 to 563,000 in 1995, representing a £8.3bn market, according to a survey by Laing & Buisson. 05-Jun-1996 Carlisle Group, the property investment concern, is being relaunched as a health care and nursing homes group, and plans to buy up such properties for leasing to health authorities and private sector companies. 30-May-1996 Nursing Home Properties has bought a Clapham nursing home with 80 beds for £3.2m. 24-May-1996 The government is looking at ways to increase private-sector involvement in the NHS by getting drugs companies to develop "disease management packages". 23-May-1996 Kier and Crown House Engineering have won a £36m contract to upgrade Gillingham's Medway hospital. 21-May-1996 APTA Healthcare has bought a Suffolk nursing home and leased two more in Wales, and now operates more than 1,000 beds in total. 14-May-1996 Bupa, the health insurer, is to stop using NHS trusts for individual customers, as most trusts will not negotiate contracts of more than one year. 11-May-1996 Vaux Group says it has had a lot of interest in the sale of its 1,800 bed St Andrews nursing homes, but wants to ensure it gets the right price. 10-May-1996 Omnicare, the home healthcare supplier, is discussing a reverse takeover with an unnamed healthcare company. 01-May-1996 Court Cavendish has made a recommended bid for Greenacre, the nursing homes group, valuing it at £21m. 27-Apr-1996 The Corporation of the City of London is to set up a commission to decide on the future of St Bartholomew's hospital, but has denied being interested in buying the hospital from the government. 23-Apr-1996 PPP Healthcare is buying four hospitals in central London - Princess Grace, the Portland, the Harley Street Clinic and the Wellington. 22-Apr-1996 Biocompatibles International, the medical company, is raising £50m in a rights issue, and has announced collaboration deals with Novo Nordisk of Denmark, in insulin, and Chiron of California, in eyecare. 20-Apr-1996 The health secretary has ruled out the possibility that NHS trusts could raise additional revenues by providing health insurance. 18-Apr-1996 Capita has won a £10m contract to supply white collar support services to the Isle of Wight Community Health Care NHS Trust. 17-Apr-1996 Customs & Excise is making unsupervised healthcare in the home cheaper for elderly people by exempting it from VAT. 12-Apr-1996 Mercury Development Capital has offered £93m for Priory Hospitals, the UK operation of Community Psychiatric Centers of the United States. 12-Apr-1996 Nursing Home Properties, the nursing home purchase and leaseback concern, has acquired three properties comprising 215 beds from Exceler Health Care for £6.6m. 10-Apr-1996 The government is to alter the regulations on state residential care in old age, allowing people to keep assets valued at up to 150% of the insurance cover taken out. 02-Apr-1996 Vaux Group is looking for a buyer for its St Andrews nursing home business as it wants to concentrate on pubs, hotels and breweries. 29-Mar-1996 Healthcall is to open 12 new care centres to provide out-of-hours GP services. 28-Mar-1996 Hereford Hospitals NHS Trust is to use the Alfred McAlpine Atcare consortium for a £40m redevelopment of hospital services. 23-Mar-1996 The United Healthcare consortium is to redevelop the Gloucestershire Royal NHS Trust hospital, using a £70m private finance intitiative. 21-Mar-1996 Primary Health Properties, the investor in buildings used by doctors and health authorities, has raised £16m in a placing on the Alternative Investment Market. 21-Mar-1996 Takare, the nursing homes concern, has seen occupancy levels fall to 92%, partly due to problems with the Community Care Reforms, but is optimistic about a 50% real growth in the market over the next 25 years. 19-Mar-1996 Aramark, the US contract catering business, is planning to move into the UK hospital sector, as well as expand its further education operations. 18-Mar-1996 The health minister is forming a fraud squad to reduce the abuse of prescriptions, which is thought to be costing the NHS £30m a year. 13-Mar-1996 CrestaCare is to concentrate more on specialised healthcare services rather than just the care of the elderly, with units being adapted for treating eating disorders, dementia and others. 13-Mar-1996 Court Cavendish is buying two nursing homes in Dartford, Kent, for £3.75m. 07-Mar-1996 The government is considering a move to make insurance companies reimburse it for state benefits paid to victims of accidents while they are not working. 04-Mar-1996 Community Hospitals is looking for acquisitions to expand its nursing homes and private hospitals divisions. 27-Feb-1996 Gaba International of Switzerland has bought Plantur, the German haircare brand, from London International Group for £1.4m. 15-Feb-1996 Westminster Healthcare aims to get half of its turnover from non-nursing home operations within five years. 09-Feb-1996 PPP Healthcare plans to become a public limited company, rejecting a flotation because it would fear a hostile takeover. 05-Feb-1996 The government is to build a £50m 246-bed wing at the St James's Hospital in Leeds, the biggest project so far under its private finance initiative. 30-Jan-1996 Nursing Home Properties has gained three nursing homes - in Lincolnshire, Glenrothes and Widnes. 24-Jan-1996 Innovative Technologies, the health care concern, plans to raise £6.7m in a rights issue to allow it to transform from a researcher into a manufacturer. 23-Jan-1996 Quality Care Homes plans new nursing homes in Scotland, Yorkshire and the Midlands. 17-Jan-1996 The government will in February unveil a plan which will allow people to retain over £60,000 in assets while receiving state-funded residential nursing care. 12-Jan-1996 APTA Healthcare is buying a rehabilitation unit with 27 beds at Portland House, Nottingham. 12-Jan-1996 SmithKline Beecham is merging its four service activities into one unit called Healthcare Services. 12-Jan-1996 The government hopes to free NHS resources with newly-announced guidelines concerning "evidence-based medicine", which aims to promote successful clinical treatments and eliminate ineffective ones. 11-Jan-1996 The information below comes from the UK Activity Report. Click here for further details Copyright UK Business Park 1995-2007