Wakefield’s core business is private healthcare, primarily the provision of surgical facilities and post operative care, as well as the provision of facilities and patient care for other specialist medical procedures such as endoscopy and cardiology.

To deliver these services, Wakefield develops, owns and operates private hospital facilities. Wakefield also leases space on its hospital campuses to specialists for consulting rooms and to other independent providers of services that are compatible with those that Wakefield itself provides (such as radiology, physiotherapy and pathology).

The company has three primary sources of work: private patients (funded either via the patient’s insurance or by the patient themselves), surgery contracted by ACC and surgery contracted by District Health Boards (DHBs).

Private patients make up the majority of the company’s business. The key drivers for patients to choose treatment in a private as opposed to a public hospital are:

• Choice: the ability to choose the specialist who treats them, the facility in which they are treated and the treatment or technique that is performed.
• Timeliness: the ability to gain access to the treatments that patients need as and when they need them.
• Availability of treatments not provided by the public system: for example obesity surgery, cosmetic procedures and innovative/high technology procedures.
• Quality of experience: more individual attention and more comfortable facilities.

ACC purchases surgical services from private and public providers in order to provide treatment and rehabilitation for patients who have suffered injury as a result of accidents. Contracts are entered into annually between ACC and the surgical providers setting pricing according to a national pricing schedule and providing a total budget for work in the coming year, though there are no committed volumes.

DHB work is contracted from DHBs who either lack the capacity to complete the work themselves or do not have the capability to provide specialised procedures in-house. This is a smaller work stream and has historically been unpredictable in nature and timing.

The specialists who treat their patients in the company’s hospitals are independent practitioners who book their patients into the company’s hospitals. Wakefield supplies the operating facilities, equipment, medical supplies, nursing staff and other related services while the specialist is responsible for directing the patient’s care. Specialists are subject to credentialing by the hospitals to ensure that quality standards are maintained, but other than this there is no contractual arrangement between the specialist and the company except for certain ACC and DHB contracts where Wakefield is the principal contractor and subcontracts the provision of surgery to the specialists.