Royal Marsden to open cancer treatment centre near Harley Street

An NHS hospital is to launch a direct challenge to London’s Harley Street private practices by opening the first state-run cancer treatment centre in the world-renowned medical district as it seeks to expand its footprint in the independent healthcare market.

Housed in a Georgian property on Cavendish Square, next to Harley Street, the Royal Marsden’s new outpatient centre will offer a one-stop diagnostic service, with same day scans and test results, plus a minor procedure suite and medical day unit for treatment, including chemotherapy.

It will be aimed at the “worried well, as well as cancer patients needing treatment,” said Shams Maladwala, managing director of Royal Marsden Private Care.

With NHS funding constrained, hospitals have been seeking additional revenue, particularly in central London where facilities can attract patients from overseas. Maladwala said the clinic would support the “financial sustainability” of The Royal Marsden, with the income generated reinvested back into the NHS trust.

The Royal Marsden already runs the NHS’s most successful private patient unit, on its site in Chelsea. This earned £132.6m in the year to March 2020, up from £121.3m the previous year and £92m in 2016/17. Income from private patients now accounts for 36 per cent of the trust’s patient revenue, and 29 per cent of total revenues, which includes research grants, charitable income and other activity.

Maladwala said the clinic’s location next to Harley Street would help to attract consultants who wanted to do private work, as well as patients seeking access to the most advanced treatments including the latest drug trials.

About 40 per cent of the Royal Marsden’s private patients were from overseas, particularly the Middle East, before the pandemic, and Maladwala believes they will return.

Despite increasing competition in London, including the opening of the new 184-bed Cleveland Clinic hospital later this year, Maladwala said this was “unfortunately a market that is growing exponentially”.

Other NHS hospitals have also been trying to tap into Harley Street’s brand; the Royal Brompton Hospital has an outpatient and diagnostic facility nearby in Wimpole Street.

Ted Townsend, analyst at healthcare specialist LaingBuisson, said that NHS hospitals had increased their earnings from private patients in the belief that they “offer a more consistent source of income compared to the vagaries that can exist from an under-pressure NHS funding regime”.

Specialist hospitals were the most popular as they offered access to the leading consultants in their fields as well as high-end equipment and facilities including intensive care units, he said.

Private patient units in NHS hospitals accounted for almost a quarter of the central London private healthcare market, and were outperforming the independent sector, Townsend said.

Revenue growth for the capital’s units averaged almost 9 per cent over the 10 years to March 2020, compared with 5 per cent for the independent sector, which includes the US chain HCA International and Spire hospitals.

The decision by NHS hospitals to allow patients to beat waiting lists by paying either through medical insurance or directly has angered anti-privatisation groups such as We Own It, especially during the pandemic.

However, Maladwala said NHS patients would benefit from the centre. “It’s a virtuous circle,” he added. “All the income goes back into the trust and helps fund our activities. It’s the opposite of privatisation — its managing the resources ourselves,” he said.