Kingsbridge Top Team –Leading The Healthcare Revolution

The growing role of private healthcare as a viable alternative shows no signs of slowing down. More private GP practices are opening their doors and more and more patients are choosing to pay for treatment rather than wait in

The Participants

ever-lengthening NHS queues.

From its very early days as the 3FiveTwo Group, Kingsbridge Private Health Group has been at the very forefront of private medical care in Ireland, North & South. The group operates Belfast’s largest private hospital on the Lisburn

Road, a new and rapidly expanding Diagnostic & Treatment Centre on the King’s Hall site, the North West leading private facility at Ballykelly and a private hospital across the border in Sligo.

Business Eye’s Richard Buckley talks to Kingsbridge Group CEO Mark Regan

RB – Mark, set out the broader picture for us? Where is Kingsbridge as a group, how has healthcare changed and where is it going?

MR – Healthcare these days is an all-island story. Disease, cancer, diagnostics and treatments don’t respect borders. We’re an ageing population, 20% over 65 and many with multiple healthcare needs.

The capacity to deal with these healthcare demands hasn’t kept pace with the demand. In England, 0.6% of patients wait more than a year for treatment, in the Republic it’s under 3% but here it’s 14%.

Kingsbridge has partnered with the NHS over the past 20 years, including during the pandemic. We’ve delivered more than 2 million patient episodes over those 20 years. We’ve built theatres and bed capacity to help bridge the demand gap and, in addition to supporting the NHS, we also offer access to self-funding and insured patients from both NI and ROI.

We’re helping both NHS and private patients from every county on this island to obtain a rapid diagnosis and timely surgical intervention. That’s thanks to my 1,000 colleagues led by the four General Managers around this table.

Some of you focus on life changing elective surgery such as joint replacements and cataract surgery, others offer cancer diagnosis within a week meaning the difference between life and death for and the General Managers of all four key facilities – Kelly Maccartney of Kingsbridge Private Hospital, Belfast; Anthony McKenna, Kingsbridge Ballykelly; Jennifer McLaughlin, Kingsbridge Sligo and Ashling Green, General Manager of the Kingsbridge Diagnostic & Treatment Centre. thousands of patients every year.

Remember that every week in NI more than 200 people are diagnosed with cancer. That’s more people than can fit into a plane taking off from Belfast to London or Malaga.

RB – Can I ask you to introduce yourselves and tell me a bit more about your roles.

AM – My name is Anthony McKenna and I’m general manager of Kingsbridge in Ballykelly. I joined in 2015 as Head of Radiology here in Belfast and worked through a number of other roles until we acquired the Ballykelly site a number of years ago.

JM – My name is Jennifer McLaughlin and I’m General Manager of Kingsbridge Sligo. I joined the company in 2012 as a Junior Fertility Nurse with Origin Fertility Care, moving into management from there. In 2019, I was asked to go to our new Sligo hospital on a short secondment and I enjoyed it so much I decided to stay....with the blessing of the company, of course.

AG – I’m Ashling Green, General Manager of Kingsbridge Diagnostic & Treatment Centre. I started as an Outpatient Nurse in 2012, moving on to become Patient Manager. I moved across to the Kings Hall site to open the Endoscopy Centre and, a year ago, I become General Manager of the wider Diagnostic & Treatment Centre project, which is moving into Phase 3 of a new build programme.