Where lucre is still filthy

摘要

THE profit motive is alive and well at the Circle hospital outside Bath, in southwest England. The hospital was designed by the architect Norman Foster, and is run by Circle Healthcare, a firm part-owned by its employees and set up by Ali Parsa, a former banker at Goldman Sachs, in 2004. It treats a mixture of National Health Service and private patients. Corridors are wide and gleaming, operating theatres newly equipped. Doctors and nurses have more say in management decisions than in many English hospitals. Mr Parsa's mission is to provide clinical services to the NHS-while turning a profit. From this summer Circle Healthcare will also run Hichingbrooke hospital in Cambridgeshire, the first major hospital within the nhs system to be wholly managed by a private firm. Mr Parsa wants to expand the model-but fears a newly nervous mood in government about profitmaking in the public services.