Circle Health Group was delighted to be awarded ‘Private Hospital Group of the Year’ for an unprecedented third consecutive year. Circle continued to outpace the market in both investment and disruptive innovation, with a £230 million capital investment programme and new digital and rehab services, and strengthened its unique focus on culture and people which underpins its success.

Circle was the largest private provider by footprint, asset portfolio and volumes, and performed the largest number of procedures in the sector according to PHIN data. 2022 was also Circle’s best year ever for revenue, with its market-leading capital investment programme facilitating steady growth.

Circle has always prioritised patient outcomes above all other metrics, and this is reflected in its unrivalled results. PROMs [patient reported outcome measures – the standard industry-wide outcome measure, based on average EQ-VAS score gains] were 9% higher than the NHS benchmark and 2% higher than the independent sector average in the hip surgery category. In the knee category, outcomes were 33% higher than the NHS benchmark and 14% higher than the independent sector average. Circle also leads the field in another key clinical quality, JAG accreditation [awarded to high-quality gastric endoscopy services], where it has the largest number of JAG-accredited facilities in the independent sector.

The group’s unrelenting focus on clinical quality has also been recognised in the hospital regulator’s ratings, with a 13% increase in the proportion of sites rated Good or Outstanding by the Care Quality Commission across the portfolio in 2022, and a reduction in the number of sites rated Requires improvement from 40% to 18% since Circle’s acquisition of BMI Healthcare in 2019. Circle is also unique in the sector in its embrace of transparent clinical audit in surgery, with 100% of sites completing the ‘Getting It Right First Time’ best practice surgical initiative [GIRFT is considered the gold standard of clinical audit in the UK healthcare sector].

Circle’s unique selling point has always been its belief in the importance of staff engagement to deliver results across the board. The Sunday Times voted Circle Health Group one of the UK’s top 30 big companies in 2021 and 2022, and crucially ranked it one of the top five improvers among big companies in 2022. Circle saw the benefit of this investment in people and culture in recruitment and retention rates that significantly outperform the UK healthcare market.

Across a wide range of metrics – volumes, footprint, clinical quality, patient satisfaction, and staff engagement – Circle led the market in 2022 and continued to deliver the consistent year-on-year improvements that have characterised the group since its acquisition of BMI Healthcare.