CMA compliance

The services provided at Spire Sussex Hospital to referring clinicians and the amounts charged by Spire for those services are set out below:

• Use of consulting rooms £20 per hour
• Medical secretarial services £19.40 per hour

The following “low-value” services are also provided to referring clinicians with practising privileges at this hospital:

• General services to ensure clinical safety (eg in-house training, chaperones)
• Operational services such as patient bookings/admissions (including online booking and payment for consultations), access to a virtual consultation solution, administrative services and billing, and insurance/indemnity cover in respect of NHS patients
• General marketing support, including production of consultant directories, promotional activities, web profiles etc
• Basic workplace amenities such as teas/coffees/refreshments, subsidised meals, car parking, stationery

Spire group Medical Advisory Committee (MAC) Chairs conferences are held twice a year, focusing on clinical safety and governance issues. MAC Chairs from all of Spire’s hospitals are invited to attend, with their partners, and are joined by members of Spire’s senior management. In 2017, the conferences were held in Berlin and Aylesbury and the total cost of the events was approximately £85,000 and £25,000 respectively. In 2018, a conference was held in Berlin and the total cost of the event was approximately £88,000. In 2019, the conferences were held in Lisbon and Aylesbury and the total cost of the events was approximately £95,000 and £28,400. MAC Chairs were also invited to attend the Spire Healthcare Senior Management Conference in Birmingham in June 2019 (8 MAC Chairs attended at a cost of £845 per head). No conferences were held in 2020. In 2021, conferences were held virtually via Zoom as well as face to face in Aylesbury. The total cost of the events in 2021 was approximately £2,120 and £19,300 respectively.

In 2019, Spire Healthcare held a series of 5 dinners with 70 consultants from across 5 Spire hospitals for the purpose of meeting various members of the Spire Executive team and listening to and engaging with consultants. The cost of the dinners ranged from £60 to £80 per head. No dinners were held in 2020 and 2021.

Corporate hospitality events held by the hospital at no charge to referring clinicians are set out below, together with the cost of providing such events:

• England v Wales Rugby, February 2017: £433 per head

Private hospital operators are required to disclose details of referring clinicians practising at their facilities, who have a share or financial interest in those facilities or any equipment used there. Some clinicians may own shares in Spire Healthcare Group plc, which were acquired either at the admission price or through trading on the main market of the London Stock Exchange. Where a referring clinician has an individual web page profile on this hospital website, relevant shares and/or financial interests are disclosed there. For referring clinicians who do not have an individual profile, their shares and/or financial interests are shown below:

• Mr Jamal Zaidi holds less than 0.1% of the shares in Spire Healthcare Group plc

Private hospital operators are required to disclose details of certain paid services provided by referring clinicians to private hospitals operators in addition to exercising practising privileges at that hospital. This information can be found on the referring clinician’s individual web page profile on this hospital website.

• Dr Chris Scanlan is paid £2,000 per annum to be the Clinical Governance Lead at Spire Sussex Hospital. His duties include providing clinical governance advice to the hospital and attending the hospital’s quarterly clinical governance meetings.
• Dr Nadeem Raja is paid £4,000 per annum to be the Lead Microbiologist at Spire Sussex Hospital. His duties include providing infection control advice and attending the hospital’s quarterly infection control meetings.
• Dr Tom Bate is Chair of the Medical Advisory Committee at Spire Sussex Hospital. Their role is to provide senior professional advice to the Hospital Director and Director of Clinical Services in order to support effective medical governance and oversight. They are paid £14,000 per annum for this role and are also entitled to receive the following fees for the provision of additional ad hoc services: (i) £750 for chairing a Professional Review Committee; (ii) £200 per hour for attendance at regulatory or other national body meeting (capped at £500); (iii) £500 for each annual medical appraisal undertaken for a doctor designating to Spire for the purposes of revalidation; (iv) £1,000 per annum for undertaking the role of governance lead in addition to MAC Chair; and (v) £200 per hour for the preparation of an independent report (up to a maximum of £500 per report unless otherwise agreed due to complexity) upon request by the Medical Director or Chief Medical Officer.
• Hastings Anaesthetic Group run pre-operative assessment clinics at the hospital. Duties include running regular anaesthetic clinics which consists of face to face patient appointments and note reviews to ensure our patients are medically fit for anaesthesia, and meet the hospital admission criteria. Hastings Anaesthetic Group anaesthetists are paid £600 per clinic. The following individuals hold Practising Privileges at Spire Sussex Hospital and have a financial interest in Hastings Anaesthetic Group:
  • Dr Thomas Bate
  • Dr Gerard Gould
  • Dr Timothy Arnold
  • Dr Katherine Murray
  • Dr Ian Hicks
  • Dr Andrew Slater
  • Dr James Evans
  • Dr Alexander Trimmings
  • Dr James Bennett
  • Dr Sinan Bahlool
  • Dr Alastair Lowe
  • Dr Petr Vondras
  • Dr Kishore Machavarapu
  • Dr Nicholas McNeillis
  • Dr Ian Reeve
  • Dr Fraser Wiggins
  • Dr Christopher Scanlan