BROCKWORTH, England, April 1 /PRNewswire/ -- Vanguard Healthcare, which operates the UK national fleet of mobile operating theatres, has been acquired by its management from Nuffield Health, the UK's largest healthcare charity. The original founders of the business have re-joined the management in order to strengthen and support the team.

Vanguard's unique business provides equipped mobile healthcare facilities with staff to healthcare providers throughout the UK and Ireland. The fleet now includes mobile operating theatres, day surgery units, endoscopy suites, recovery wards and clinics. In November last year, the 100,000th NHS procedure was carried out on board a Vanguard mobile.

Vanguard Healthcare was acquired by Nuffield Health in 2004 and has benefited from significant investment, enabling the fleet to increase to 36 - the largest such fleet in the world.

The MBO will enable the company to explore additional areas of commercial activity, including international markets, said Chief Executive Ian Gillespie.

Our core market will remain our partnership with the NHS where we continue to have a very strong order book.

David Mobbs, Group Chief Executive, Nuffield Health added, We are proud that in the years that Nuffield Health owned and operated these mobile units, they have offered a clean and safe environment in which thousands of patients have been treated. Whilst our strategy has moved away from supplying this type of facility, we wish Vanguard and its staff every success for the future.

The team was supported by Robson Taylor Corporate Finance and Osborne Clarke Solicitors. Finance has been provided by MML Capital Partners and HSBC.

Notes for editors

Vanguard Healthcare Ltd

Operating nationwide Vanguard is headquartered in Brockworth, Gloucester. Founded in 2002, Vanguard's key service is the hire of mobile operating theatres, dedicated mobile endoscopy units, wards and clinics to public and private hospitals providing a flexible solution for healthcare delivery.

Facts and figures: Vanguard employs 68 people. We have 36 mobile facilities comprising of - 24 mobile operating theatres - these are both standard and laminar flow in configuration - 3 Mobile Endoscopy suites with full decontamination capability - 1 complete day surgery unit - 5 mobile wards - 3 mobile clinics

Our unique solutions includes the provision of equipped mobile healthcare facilities with clinical nurses and operating department assistants

In November 2008 the 100,000th patient to undergo a procedure on a mobile unit was treated by Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.

Our service delivery model is to work in partnership with both NHS and other healthcare providers by assisting them to provide care closer to patients' homes, maintaining capacity during refurbishment, providing capacity to meet changing patient demand, facilitating new service development and responding to emergency needs.

Nuffield Health

Nuffield Health is a charity that provides services for better health. It helps people to get healthy and stay healthy and to identify and manage their individual health risks, and it provides sophisticated diagnosis and treatment for any problems that occur. People can access its services through a national network of over 200 facilities from hospitals to health clubs.

As a charity, Nuffield Health combines social values with the best disciplines of business to maximise its benefit to the public. Nuffield Health is independent of government and has no shareholders, so it can think for the long term and reinvest all financial surpluses for customers' benefit. In over 50 years since it was established in 1957, Nuffield Health has served millions of people.

Further information from: Vanguard Healthcare: John V. Wright - Tel +44(0)1782-711978; Nuffield Health: James Thellusson - Tel +44(0)20-7079-9212/+44(0)7973-633249 or Pippa Cox - Tel +44(0)208-339-5868