Kent Institute of Medicine and Surgery

KIMS Hospital is a private hospital in Maidstone built by VINCI Construction UK at a cost of £90 million which opened in 2014.

It has 99 beds, five theatres, two endoscopy suites and two cardiac labs. In April 2015 only 25% of the beds were occupied.^[1] It is the first private tertiary-level hospital in Kent.

The chairman is Peter Goddard, a lawyer who started the project with Dr Phyllis Holt, Franz Dickmann and his son James in 2006. The Hospital Director is Jayne Cassidy, former Hospital Director at Nuffield Health and Director of Development at Hospital Corporation of America.^[2]

It was intended to provide highly specialised services, some of which were not available elsewhere in the county, but the extreme range of services offered resulted in very low numbers of some procedures. The Care Quality Commission inspected it in 2016 and complained that it website offered "a huge range of services and treatments that it cannot provide safely and creates an image that is inaccurate,” rating its safety standards as inadequate, though it was rated “good” for caring, responsiveness and effectiveness, and its radiology and catheterisation laboratories were praised.^[3]

References

1. "Bosses at KIMS Hospital in Maidstone say private hospitals support the NHS, which is a 'political football'". Kent Online. 30 April 2015. Retrieved 19 June 2016.
2. "First private tertiary-level hospital in Kent due to open in April 2014". Building Better Health Care. 11 April 2013. Retrieved 19 June 2016.
3. "Pioneering private hospital 'requires improvement', says CQC". Health Service Journal. 28 April 2016. Retrieved 19 June 2016.

Coordinates: 51°17′10″N 0°33′24″E / 51.28615°N 0.55662°E