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Guide · PDF · 32 pages

Reading a Private P&L Without Flinching.

Line by line through a UK private medical practice profit-and-loss statement.

What this Guide is for

A UK private medical practice P&L looks superficially similar to any small-business P&L. It is not. The revenue mix is unusual — self-pay, insurer, embassy, in some cases NHS contract on top — and each stream carries different recognition timing, different bad-debt patterns, and different unit economics. The cost base is unusual too. The judgement calls hide in different places.

This Guide is the systematic walk-through. Every line of a UK private medical practice P&L, explained in context, with the specific quirks of private medical economics surfaced rather than hidden.

What's inside

Eight chapters, structured to be read in order or used as reference.

  1. The shape of a UK private medical practice P&L
  2. Revenue: self-pay, insurer, embassy, and the unit-economics differences
  3. Consultant fees: sessional, retainer, profit-share
  4. Indemnity, regulatory cost, and the line items unique to private medicine
  5. Premises, hospital-group rents, and what's really in the lease
  6. EBITDA, multiples, and how private practice accounts are read by acquirers
  7. Where this breaks: the limits of a single year's P&L in private medicine
  8. What to ask: questions for the accountant, the principal, and the hospital group

How it reads

"The fundamental difficulty with reading a private medical practice P&L is that the same revenue line can mean wildly different things depending on the recognition convention used. A practice that recognises insurer revenue when invoiced will report a different number than one that recognises on payment."
— from Chapter 2, Revenue: self-pay, insurer, embassy

Who it's for

  • Consultants joining a private group practice. Before you sign on, you need to read the practice's accounts substantively.
  • Consultants running their own private list. Reading your own accounts with judgement requires the financial literacy this Guide builds.
  • Practice managers in UK private clinics. Briefing the principal on financial performance requires fluency with the P&L.
  • Anyone considering acquiring or investing in a UK private medical practice. The substantive starting point for due diligence.

What's not in this Guide

It is a Guide, not regulated advice. It does not provide personalised financial, legal, or tax recommendations. Those require a qualified professional who knows your full circumstances. The guide's purpose is to make those conversations substantive rather than passive.

It focuses on UK clinical practice specifically — the regulatory and commercial environment of the UK.

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