Acurity to launch Wellington's first private cancer care unit in $20m joint venture

Acurity Healthcare plans to open Wellington's first private cancer care unit in a $20 million joint venture with Australian cancer care provider Icon Group.

The Wellington-based private hospital operator has been keen on expanding into providing oncology and rehabilitation services and the planned investment with Icon will allow the company to do that, chief executive Ian England said.

"Often cancer patients have some surgery at some point in their treatment and of course, we have a lot of specialist surgeons here who do that sort of work, so we see that we can wrap our services around patients and get them single end-to-end care," he said. "We're trying to make a simple pathway for patients."

Acurity signalled the plans to provide oncology and rehabilitation services late last year, and the new unit will ultimately be housed with new equipment once Wakefield Hospital has been upgraded.

In the meantime, Mr England said the unit is expected to open before Christmas, operating in Wakefield's existing premises.

The terms of the joint venture are still being finalised, though Mr England anticipates it will be a 50:50 arrangement where Acurity provides the facilities and Icon the processes and policies. Local medical specialists offer services in the unit, and Acurity said up to 20 staff will be employed by it.

Mr England said the response so far has been mixed, with some surgeons keen to jump in and others surprised by the announcement.

The unit will have the capacity to treat 900 people a year, and will be complementary to  cancer care offered by Capital & Coast District Health Board.

"The business case was built on this being a private unit providing care," Mr England said.

Once the unit is up and running, Wellington will join Auckland, Christchurch, Hamilton and Palmerston North in having a private healthcare provider with a cancer care centre.

Acurity was taken private in 2014 after its minority shareholders were convinced the upgrade to Wakefield hospital would likely cost more than $50 million and that as a publicly listed company it wasn't equipped to deal with that. Since then, Australian healthcare investor Evolution Healthcare bought out its partners after agreeing to sell its Boulcott facility in Lower Hutt to gain regulatory approval.

Mr England said the upgrade's design and process have been done and that the resource consent process isn't far away, and while it's operating to "some ambitious timeframes" he said Acurity thinks those are "achievable."

(BusinessDesk)