Priory Group

The Priory Group is a provider of mental health care facilities in the United Kingdom. The group operates at more than 500 sites with over 7,000 beds. Its flagship hospital is the Priory Hospital, Roehampton, which is best known for treating celebrities particularly for drug addiction. The Priory Group also manages schools, some for students with autism spectrum disorders through Priory Education and Children’s Services. Some of its facilities are run by its subsidiary Partnerships in Care. In January 2019 it opened its first overseas school in partnership with the Abu Dhabi Department of Education and Knowledge.

Ownership
In 1980 the Priory Hospital in Roehampton was acquired by Community Psychiatric, an American healthcare company, and became the first clinic in what was to become the Priory Group.

The Priory Group was the subject of a management buyout, funded by Mercury Asset Management and several banks, in 1994.

In 2000 Westminster Healthcare Group (a company owned by Dr Chai Patel) acquired Priory Hospitals from the management team and from Mercury Asset Management for £96 million.

In 2002, the company was the subject of another management buyout, this time led by Doughty Hanson & Co, for £289 million. The company was divested to ABN AMRO (later acquired by the Royal Bank of Scotland Group) in July 2005 for £875 million, netting the five company directors over £50 million.

Advent International took control for an aggregate consideration of £925 million in 2011.

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.

Acadia Healthcare bought the business for £1.3 billion in January 2016 and sold it to Waterland Private Equity for £1.1 billion in January 2021. Waterland plans to join it with MEDIAN of Germany "to create Europe’s leading rehabilitation and mental health services provider", especially in neurology and other post-acute services.

A 2023 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”.

Performance
An investigation by The Times found that the number of reported deaths, including those from natural causes, in Priory facilities rose by 50% between 2017 and 2020. In 2021, NHS England, which contracts the Priory for over £400 million in mental health care contracts annually, criticised the group's chief executive for "repeated service failures" and complained that safety had not improved despite meetings with the Priory Group over the preceding two years. In 2022, the Care Quality Commission identified that Priory hospitals faced criticism over the care related to at least 30 patient fatalities.

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.

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. The company pleaded guilty to a charge of being an employer failing to discharge its duty to ensure people were not exposed to risk. It faced a fine of at least £2.4 million. The inquest jury found that the staff had failed to dial 999 quickly enough, had failed to call a doctor promptly and were not trained in CPR.

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.” The CQC rated three units run by Priory Group inadequate.

Two Priory hospitals, Kneesworth House in Hertfordshire and Priory Hospital Blandford, were rated “inadequate” by the Care Quality Commission in July 2019. Admissions to Priory Hospital Blandford were suspended “until further notice”. The greatest problems at Kneesworth house were on the forensic wards. Ellingham Hospital, in Attleborough was rated inadequate in November 2019. According to Priory “the fundamental issue . . . was structural: there are simply not enough skilled staff in the region to meet the highly specialised needs of the young people at Ellingham”. 88.2% of its 93 mental healthcare facilities in the UK have received the equivalent of good or better ratings.

In October 2021, safety problems and the incompetence of hospital staff at the Priory Hospital Kneesworth in Hertfordshire were reported by an undercover journalist in the documentary "Secure Hospital Uncovered (Exposure)" on ITV.

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.

In April 2022, one of the UK’s leading forensic psychiatrists found that the Priory was responsible for two fundamental causes and 29 contributory factors of the death of a 23-year old NHS patient at Priory Hospital Woodbourne in Birmingham. At the inquest, the jury found that the death was "contributed to by neglect" by Priory and a prevention of future death report was issued by the coroner.

In November 2023, Priory Hospital Roehampton received a £140k fine due to inadequate patient safety measures, which was highlighted following a woman's death under their care.

Notable patients

 * The following is alphabetical list of notable people whom The Priory Group has treated:


 * Craig Charles, actor
 * Richey Edwards, musician and songwriter
 * Paul Gascoigne, footballer
 * Michael Johnson, footballer
 * Justin Hawkins, singer
 * Steven Walters, footballer
 * Ruby Wax, actress and comedian