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UK: Watchdog reverses ruling on private hospital sales

By  |  March 22, 2016

Britain’s competition watchdog has reversed a ruling that would have forced private healthcare companies to sell luxury hospitals in London.

The retreat comes despite a five-year investigation into the £5bn private healthcare industry that concluded private hospital operators had overcharged patients because they face little competition.

The Competition and Markets Authority had initially ruled in 2013 that 20 hospitals would have to be sold. But its conclusions were challenged by the companies — BMI, Spire, Ramsay, Nuffield and HCA — which demanded to see the CMA’s analysis, and by last November, only two hospitals, both owned by the American HCA, were named.

On Tuesday, Roger Witcomb, chairman of the CMA, dropped that demand and said that although he still believed the market required more competition, the entrance of more companies in the next few years means that “divestment is no longer a proportionate remedy”.

Full content: The Financial Times

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