Circle Health – The New way forward for UK Healthcare?

Circle Partnership is an organisation made up of some of the best clinicians in the field. The group is the biggest healthcare partnership in Europe with over 2,500 members. Circle currently have 4 hospitals within the UK, these are located in; Bath, Nottingham, Stratford-up-Avon and Windsor. The Bath branch has already won an award for its services despite having only been open for a year.

The company structures its hospitals in a slightly different way to other UK medical centres. Circle has allowed medical professionals to co-own the places they work in. The company believes that Doctors and Nurses have an important view of how the company runs and puts them in charge of their specific areas. The company call this approach “Circles”, where each separate unit has a lead doctor, nurse and administrator. They believe this maximises the hospital footprint and harnesses the collective wisdom of the large group of professionals. Departmental managers work with Clinical leaders for each of the companies departments and together make decisions on how to improve their area. This allows the doctors treating the patients to make decisions in their patient’s best interest.

Circle employs many top professionals within its hospitals to make sure it provides the highest possible level of service. Executives on the company’s Bath team board include; Shelagh Meldrum, Neil Bradbury and Jonathan Boulton. Most of the company’s staff have been within the industry for a long period of time. Some staff have also trained with top professionals in their field outside of the UK including Neil Bradbury, who worked in Australia and the US with top knee surgeons.

The company has made a case for more companies to change their management style to improve their service. Using their real world evidence they have approached NHS management, politicians and healthcare opinion formers. Many of the healthcare professionals also provide their thoughts on hospital leadership in this debate. The company believes that their centres are proof that this form of management does work.

               

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  • Jane Hithe says:

    A great concept, I used the company’s Bath branch several months back and was very happy with the hospitals service