Ramsay Health Care has reported an earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) loss of A$35.6m (£19m) in the UK, according to results for the six months to 31 December 2021.
This figure includes £2.5m in transaction costs associated with its failed bid to buy Spire Healthcare, after Spire shareholders rejected the £1.4bn deal which had previously received been backed by the boards of both companies.
The group also revealed additional costs associated with the pandemic had totalled around £3m per month.
Its UK business was severely affected by challenges posed by the pandemic including isolation orders affecting the availability of patients, doctors and employees at short notice resulting in material procedure cancellations and significantly higher personnel costs.
However, Ramsay ended the year with the announcement of its acquisition of UK mental healthcare provider Elysium Healthcare for A$1.4bn (£775m).
Profit down 30%
Across the business, the group reported statutory profit of A$158.9m (£84.8m) – down 29.7% year-on-year, with group EBIT coming in at A$489.2m (£261m)- down 16.2% on the previous year.
However, in Asia-Pacific revenue was up 0.5% to A$2.73bn (£1.46bn) and up 2.8% in Europe to $3.23bn (£1.72bn).
Commenting on the group’s performance, Craig McNally, CEO and managing director at Ramsay Health Care said the results continued to show the impact of government imposed restrictions on capacity limiting population activity levels, combined with the additional costs of operating in the Covid environment.
“While surgical restrictions are now starting to ease in most of our regions we expect a transition period where our activities will continue to be disrupted by the impact of cancellations due to the availability of our people, doctors and patients and we incur the higher costs associated with staffing, PPE and procurement,” he added.
Elysium integration
Touching on the Elysium acquisition, McNally said the group was now focused on welcoming its team into the wider Ramsay Group, realising growth opportunities and driving synergies.
“Our mental health specialist clinicians in Australia and France will work closely with the Elysium team to collaborate and drive innovation in Ramsay’s mental health businesses ensuring we continue to deliver leading patient outcomes in this critical area,” he added.
Turning to the prospect of future acquisitions, McNally revealed the group would continue to invest in brownfield and greenfield development activities which it believes would drive growth, support margins and improve market share.
“We will look for acquisition opportunities that are consistent with our strategy to expand our facilities footprint and move into new and adjacent services that complement our world class hospital network.
“We remain well positioned to benefit from the additional volume created by the growing backlog of surgical and non surgical cases in all our regions. The ability to fill staff vacancies is also a factor limiting activity across the healthcare industry globally, and Europe in particular, at the current time. Ramsay will invest in strategies to attract and retain staff to ensure it is well positioned to benefit from the expected lift in activity.
“We are working with governments, clinicians and other stakeholders in all our regions to develop strategies to safely operate in a Covid impacted environment and start to address the significant backlog of surgical and medical cases, some made more critical due to diagnostic delays caused by Covid.”