InHealth, is a privately owned company, that provides diagnostics and imaging services to the NHS, private hospitals and clinics, including MRI, CT, X-Ray, DXA, nuclear medicine, mammography, ultrasound, interventional cardiology, audiology, ENT, endoscopy and physiological measurement. It operates in both acute care and primary care. The company is listed on the framework contract for increasing NHS capacity to reduce the waiting lists and is heavily involved with the development of Community Diagnostic Centres across the country. The company has expanded in recent years, increasing its work for the NHS, now seeing over 4 million patients each year, and in the private sector.
Acquisitions have resulted in InHealth expanding its private services and it now has three brands targeted at private patients - Vista Health, TAC Healthcare and Preventicum, plus the global investment fund, InHealth Ventures, investing in small healthcare-focused companies. TAC Healthcare has expanded the company's private services to GPs, elective surgery, physiotherapy and other services.
Last update: July 2024
Strategy
The company employs over 3,500 people, including clinical specialists and patient referral teams. Its services are provided from over 800 locations in the UK and Ireland and they work with a significant majority of NHS Trusts in the UK. On the company's website it states that 95% of its patients come from the NHS.
The company's business with the NHS is conducted primarily under the InHealth Brand. Following a number of acquisitions over the years, in the private services sector, InHealth now operates as Vista Health, its private patient brand, providing fast and direct access to certain diagnostic services, TAC Healthcare, a provider of private patient services, diagnostics, GP services, physiotherapy, elective surgery, and occupational health, but also some services to the NHS, InHealth Ventures, a London-based early-stage investment healthcare fund, with experience in biomedical research and clinical practice, Preventicum, which conducts preventive health assessments in a luxury clinic in Central London, and InHealth Intelligence Ltd, a software provider of information management solutions for health organisations in the UK.
InHealth Intelligence focuses mainly on Diabetic Eye Screening services and population based data analysis to improve long term conditions diagnosis, promote prevention and identify cost savings.
InHealth has contracts with a large number of NHS organisations for direct access diagnostics following GP referral. The company has also been part of AQP (any qualified provider) contracts. The company has 12 Community Diagnostic Centres based across the country, which have been operating for more than 10 years, providing services to more than 1 million patients each year. Overall the company reports it provides services to 4 million NHS patients each year.
The company is benefitting from the development of Community Diagnostic Centres by the NHS and the Increasing Capacity Framework contract which the company was awarded a place on in 2021.
In the area of hospital trusts, InHealth has both mobile and fixed sites available. InHealth has a mobile fleet of over 100 fully mobile diagnostic scanners and a number of semi-permanent facilities. InHealth notes that this fleet can be mobilised quickly to fulfill or enhance existing diagnostic services and can be used for very short-term contracts. The mobile fleet includes - mammography, MRI, CT, endoscopy, cardiac cath lab, and PET-CT.
Company acquisitions include Radiographer Reporting in January 2016, Pain Management Solutions in June 2016, and in September 2016, 76% of Health Intelligence. The acquisition on Pain Management Solutions will enhance InHealth's services in a community setting. In January 2017 InHealth took over Care UK's Manchester CATS service.
Financials
The most recent accounts for InHealth Ltd are for the financial year ending September 2022, according to Companies House. The company reported revenue of almost £155.1 million up from £142.2 million in 2021. The company's profit was almost £13.2 million in 2022, up from £11.4 million in 2021.
Investors
InHealth is a private company owned by The Damask Trust, the trustees of which are Ivan Bradbury and the Embleton Trust Corporation Ltd.
InHealth Ventures has invested in 17 early-stage healthcare companies in Europe and the US.
Contracts
InHealth has a great many contracts with clinical commissioning groups and hospital groups and is also listed on several framework contracts. The company reports that 95% of its work comes from NHS patients. A framework contract involves a list of providers that have been approved to carry out the services covered by the contract. The amount of work each provider carries out is not fixed. This section focuses on the company’s most recent awards and lists only a fraction of the company’s total contracts.
In February 2024 InHealth was awarded a place on NHS Shared Business Services Limited multi supplier Framework Agreement for the provision of Clinical Managed Services, including Managed Maintenance Services. InHealth was one of 41 companies awarded a place with the framework valued at £725 million over four years to 2028.
By mid-2023, InHealth was involved with several new Community Diagnostic Centres. In August 2023, it was revealed that InHealth will operate five CDCs in the South West - located in Redruth, Bristol, Torbay, Yeovil and Weston Super Mare. In Salford, InHealth announced a CDC in association with the Northern Care Alliance NHS Foundation Trust (NCA), which will open to patients in 2023.
In October 2023, InHealth, Operose Health and Healthshare Ltd were awarded the contract for Community Diagnostics Services in North East London via NHS Standard Contract commissioned by NHS North East London Integrated Care Board. The eight year contract is worth a total of £97.8 million.
In May 2023, Tameside and Glossop ICB awarded InHealth a 10 year contract worth £53 million for the provision of a community diagnostic hub.
In October 2022 InHealth was awarded a place on the Diagnostic Service Solutions framework agreement. A two year contract, with 2 year extension option, worth £260mn. The contract covers radiology reporting and mobile diagnostic imaging.
In January 2022, InHealth was awarded a place on the framework contract Angiography & Hybrid Theatre Equipment and Related Services.
In February 2021, InHealth was one of 67 suppliers awarded a place on the NHS framework contract NHS Increasing Capacity worth in total £10 billion. The framework runs until November 2024.
In November 2021, TAC Healthcare was awarded a place on the Framework contract - NHS Workforce Alliance Framework Agreement for Insourced Services to Support the Provision of Healthcare Services by NHS and other public bodies (including Clinical Services) - along with many other private companies.
In March 2019, InHealth was chosen as the preferred provider to be awarded a contract for PET-CT scanning in the Thames Valley area, including Oxford. The decision to award the contract to InHealth caused controversy (see below). This contract is part of the process under which all the PET-CT scanning in England has been put out to tender. The process has taken place in two phases - I and II. InHealth has won part of the phase II tender - lot 4 - which covers Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire. The contract is for seven years. The contract would have meant that InHealth would have replaced the service provided at the Churchill Hospital, Oxford. InHealth planned to move the scanners elsewhere. After a backlash from campaigners and NHS staff, the contract was changed so that the two scanners will remain at the Churchill Hospital and continue to be operated by NHS staff.
In the same month, InHealth was awarded a place on a framework contract for remote teleradiology - the remote assessment of diagnostic images - and a contract to provide diagnostics services to prisons in the north of England. The latter contract is worth over £4 million.
In February 2019, InHealth was awarded a place on an AQP (any qualified provider) contract for adult audiology services in Hammersmith & Fulham, Central London, and West London.
In January 2019, InHealth was awarded a place on a framework contract to provide remote teleradiology services to hospital trusts over much of the north of England. The latter framework is valued at £100 million with nine suppliers listed on the framework contract. In the same month, the company was listed on an AQP contract for a community physiotherapy service as part of musculoskeletal services in North East Lincolnshire.
Contracts awarded in 2018, include a contract from North Kirklees CCG to provide community pain management services, a contract for Audiology services from Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire CCG, a community gastroenterology service in Ipswich and North Suffolk, a diagnostics service in Ealing, and radiology services for Brent CCG.
Other recent contracts include new diagnostic service contracts across the country, including radiology contracts in Croydon, Kingston and Walsall, major breast screening contracts in Outer North-East London and Surrey and adult ENT and audiology services in Southampton.
In January 2017 InHealth took over Care UK's Manchester CATS service.
In early 2016 InHealth was awarded a place on a framework for temporary and long term provision of mobile therapy units. Under this framework InHealth could provide mobile diagnostics.
InHealth Intelligence Ltd
This subsidiary of InHealth is a developer of software for UK healthcare companies and the NHS. It has several contracts with the NHS. Recent contracts include as one of three organisations awarded the Child Health Information Services contract in February 2024 and as one of four suppliers of the nine year diabetic screening programme contract in the South West in total worth £75 million.
In August 2023, the company was awarded the contract for the Diabetic Eye Screening Programme (DESP) in the Arden (Coventry &
Warwickshire), Herefordshire and Worcestershire area worth over £19 million.
Concerns
Political conflict of interest
In August 2023, the Guardian reported that Rishi Sunak is facing questions over a possible conflict of interest after it emerged that InHealth is linked to a No 10 policy adviser that was recruited in November 2022. The adviser, Bill Morgan, was a founding partner of the PR and lobbying firm Evoke Incisive Health (EIH).
InHealth was a fee-paying client of EIH when Morgan was a founding partner.
Care Quality
Independent research organisation WeQ4U investigated call centre waiting times for a number of UK companies from various sectors. InHealth Netcare which is used by healthcare professionals to retrieve patients test results ranked as the worst company with delays of up to 74 minutes.
Oxfordshire PET contract
The decision to name InHealth as preferred provider to be awarded the PET-CT contract in Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire was met with considerable opposition. Doctors stated that the contract award would damage patients’ health and disrupt treatment.
The scanning service was provided by Oxford University Hospitals (OUH) NHS trust’s Churchill hospital, which has an international reputation for cancer care. If InHealth had taken over, patients would have had to be transported away from the hospital for scans to diagnose and monitor their cancer, which doctors said would disrupt their treatment. Under InHealth’s plan, patients would have been taken to the GenesisCare private cancer clinic at Littlemore, four miles away on the outskirts of Oxford. There were also issues about what affects the contract award would have had on the world-class team at the Churchill Hospital.
Councillors on Oxfordshire county council's joint health overview and scrutiny committee (HOSC) put forward their concerns about coming away from a 'one team' approach and that this could have negative repercussions on patients' cancer treatment. Issues raised by the councillors include: that staff from InHealth will not be going to multidisciplinary team meetings of NHS staff; performing PET-CT scans in InHealth's mobile units to be set up in Swindon and Milton Keynes will give less accurate results than those from fixed scanners in hospitals such as the Churchill in Oxford and as a result produce a “two-tier service”; and NHS England’s alleged failure to fulfil its legal duty to consult the HOSC soon after it decided to put the PET-CT service out to tender.
As a result of the backlash from staff, campaigners and councillors, NHS England backtracked on some of the aspects of the contract. The scanners will now remain at the Churchill Hospital and be operated by NHS staff. Personnel from InHealth will have no role at the Churchill.
Litigation
InHealth has taken five CCGs to court over the awarding of a contract for community diagnostics to another private company, Healthshare. InHealth had a number of contracts with the CCGs in North London - Brent, Central London, Ealing, Hammersmith and Fulham, and West London. The five CCGs decided to combine contracts and advertise one much larger five-year contract, £15.6m contract for community diagnostic services. This was advertised in 2019 and Healthshare was awarded the contract. InHealth claims that the five CCGs acted illegally in the tender process.
InHealth has told the High Court that the CCGs breaches included those requiring them to act transparently and to treat the bidders equally.
Other concerns of note
Questions have been raised over the extent to which preventive diagnostics, such as those carried out by InHealth’s subsidiary Preventicum, actually benefit patients with some arguing that in many cases they are unnecessary. Consumer group Which? has argued that some tests "are likely to cause more harm than good, some give widely inconsistent results and little useful information, and some detect disease when it's not really there.” They add that "false results cause worry, more investigations, and even unnecessary treatment - at a cost to the individual or the National Health Service”.
