Priory Group
[10] In October 2014, former Chief Executive, Tom Riall announced that the group was planning a significant expansion into the mental health community services market and would bid in partnership with “incumbent” NHS providers, an approach that would allow them to come up with new models of care.
Anticipating more services to be put out to tender by Clinical commissioning groups, he noted that Priory could contribute "considerable commercial bidding expertise” and become the “overflow provider of choice” for the NHS.
The group considered increasing prices for care because it anticipates higher costs, including from rents, which are now subject to annual inflation-based escalators.
[16] In 2023, a British Medical Journal research paper found that healthcare provided by private equity-backed companies like the Priory Group was often more expensive and had "mixed to harmful impacts on quality".
[16] In a report, Viceroy found that the Priory Group has been "operationally loss-making for years and relies on the proceeds of sale-leaseback transactions to remain solvent" and that "Medical Properties Trust's (MPT) assertions about the solvency of its tenants are fairy tales told to shareholders and analysts.
[23] The director of the INQUEST charity, Deborah Coles, said the "shocking death toll across Priory services continues" with "repeated systemic failings to protect the lives of people" in its care.
[24] After the suicide of a 14-year old girl, Amy El-Keria, funded by the NHS, at the group’s Ticehurst House hospital in East Sussex in 2012, a prosecution was brought by the Health and Safety Executive.
[25] Its hospital in High Wycombe, a 12-bed low-security unit for young people with learning disabilities or autism, which opened in April 2018 was closed in February 2019 after the Care Quality Commission rated it inadequate and said the staff lacked appropriate experience and skills.
The company said that it could not recruit "an experienced, settled team of core nursing and clinical staff.”[26] The CQC rated three units run by Priory Group inadequate.
[30] A patient at the Chadwick Lodge mental health unit in Milton Keynes took his own life in 2015 when it was operated by the Priory Group.
[34] A retired university lecturer took his own life at the Priory Hospital Altrincham in 2019 and the coroner at his inquest found that staff had written up his observation records to "give the misleading flavour of authenticity".
The inquest jury found there was inadequate garden security and risk assessments, and staff failed to follow communication procedures and check essential handover information.
The coroner issued a Prevention of Future Deaths Order and noted that the Priory knew that the garden fence was unsafe because previous patients had escaped over it.
[42][43][44] St John’s House near Diss in Suffolk, a 49-bed hospital for adults living with learning disabilities and associated mental health issues was put in special measures in March 2021 after the Care Quality Commission rated it inadequate and accused staff of failing to ensure patients’ safety or dignity.
[53] In 2022, a young mother died at the Priory Hospital Woking and the Coroner issued a Prevention of Future Deaths Order.
The jury found risk assessments were not performed in line with policy; incomplete observations; little evidence of staff engagement with the patient; therapy notes were not acted upon and there was a lack of continuity in her care.
[61] In November 2023, Priory Hospital Roehampton was criminally convicted and fined £140,000 for inadequate patient safety measures, which were highlighted following a woman's death under their care.
