Dr Somerville Hastings, President of the Socialist Medical Association, successfully proposed a resolution at the 1934 Labour Party Conference that the party should be committed to the establishment of a State Health Service.
Conservative MP and Health Minister, Henry Willink, first proposed the National Health Service in 1944 with the publication of a White Paper "A National Health Service" which was widely distributed in full and short versions as well as in newsreel by Henry Willink himself.
Regrettably it would appear that the NHS will struggle to continue in its current guise opening up opportunities for private companies.
Spire Healthcare (LON:SPI) is one such company and is finding the transition really difficult. Its share price last peaked at 411(P) September 2016 and will soon be falling towards £1 if this decline continues.
I may be missing something here, but for me this industry is in its infancy with potentially decades of growth ahead, maybe along the same lines as the NHS itself.
Does anyone have any views on Spire Healthcare (LON:SPI) or other companies set to benefit, or am I just missing something?
I was tempted earlier, having had a self-funded knee replacement at a Spire hospital a year ago. However last month's interims confirm they're heavily under the cosh from declining NHS-funding of elective surgery (one of their key specialisms) which at the end of the day can always be deferred "On the payor side, the unprecedented decline (both in scale and speed) in NHS admissions has led to Spire having to announce disappointing H1 2018 results and a revised outlook for the financial year as a whole. Nonetheless our overall revenues are broadly flat as the growth opportunity in our private business, 2.5% in the period, continues to support our shift in strategic focus.
While the prolonged decline in NHS volumes had negative margin implications for us, overall our H1 2018 costs were in line with our budget, even after the previously indicated increases in spend on the clinical quality and our private proposition."
As a long term hold, I do think there's potential but it's hard to see what trigger there will be for a loosening of the NHS purse strings. It's some time since I've had PMI but it wouldn't surprise me if insurers are also clamping down on elective procedures, to enhance their bottom line.
