Narayana Health Ltd. plans to improve margins in its UK business by increasing the share of private-paying patients, using spare capacity at existing facilities and deploying technology-led efficiency measures, a senior executive told NDTV Profit.
The strategy comes months after the hospital chain entered the UK market through the acquisition of Practice Plus Group hospitals in November FY26. "We do have capacity to expand in the existing facilities," Sandhya J, group chief financial officer at Narayana Health, told NDTV Profit.
"The task for us going into the current year is to be able to utilise that capacity efficiently with a private-pay payer mix which comes at a higher realisation and thereby enable us to improve our profitability," she said.
In the UK healthcare system, hospitals that depend heavily on National Health Service contracts benefit from stable patient volumes, but reimbursement rates are typically lower than treatments funded through private insurance or self-paying patients. As a result, operators often look to increase private patient volumes to improve profitability and utilise spare capacity more efficiently.
Narayana Health said 93% of payers in the UK business come from the National Health Service, providing stable revenue visibility. "Our UK business is very strong in terms of its customer stickiness, efficiency, operating leverage as well as cost of delivery," Sandhya said.
The company is also looking at technology-led interventions to lower costs and improve operational efficiency in the UK operations. "We are also looking at tech-driven interventions to improve operating efficiency," she said.
Narayana Health's UK business contributed Rs 80.90 crore in revenue during the March quarter and Rs 129.92 crore since the acquisition date of Nov. 6, 2025, according to the company's earnings release.
The UK business currently operates 13 facilities with 330 operational beds, the company's investor presentation showed.
The company's management had also said during the earnings call that it plans to improve the UK business by increasing private and self-pay patients while lowering costs through technology integration.
India Expansion
Narayana Health has committed around Rs 3,000 crore towards expansion projects in India that will add around 2,000 beds across greenfield and built-to-suit facilities.
The company said most of these projects are expected to become operational in FY28 and FY29, with one project set to go live next month.
"Our current priority for growth and expansion has been our core markets, which is Bangalore and eastern market, which is Kolkata and the eastern region," Sandhya said.
The company said it will continue investing in clinics and integrated care services as part of a broader healthcare delivery strategy.
"We have committed reasonable capex to growing our clinics and our integrated care business, which we believe gives us the ability to operate in the entire spectrum of care," she said.
Narayana Health currently operates 55 healthcare facilities globally with 5,945 operational beds across India, the Cayman Islands and the UK.
The company is targeting total bed capacity of 7,600 by FY30 from 6,244 currently, according to the investor presentation.
Higher-Value Procedures
Narayana Health said growth in the India business is increasingly coming from higher-value procedures and specialised care programmes.
The company said it currently performs the largest number of robotic cardiac surgeries in India and is expanding its robotic surgery programme across oncology and other procedures.
"We are doing currently the largest robotic cardiac surgeries in India," Sandhya said.
The company's investor presentation showed the group performed more than 750 robotic cardiac surgeries in FY26, including 727 procedures at the Narayana Institute of Cardiac Sciences in Bengaluru.
The hospital chain also said it carried out 160 transcatheter aortic valve implantation procedures in FY26, marking 20% growth from a year earlier.
Narayana Health reported consolidated operating revenue of Rs 259.38 crore for the March quarter, up 75.8% from a year earlier, while adjusted EBITDA rose 40.3% to Rs 53.94 crore.
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