Circle Health Group and Radar Healthcare Shortlisted for HSJ Independent Healthcare Providers Partnership Award in Clinical Innovation
Circle Health Group, in partnership with Radar Healthcare, are delighted to be shortlisted for the HSJ Independent Healthcare Provider Award for Clinical Innovation. This recognition highlights the meaningful impact of our collaboration, from streamlining governance and improving incident reporting to driving sector-wide learning and innovation. Together, we’re demonstrating how clinical innovation can enhance care quality and improve patient outcomes across the independent healthcare sector.
In this article, we share the details behind the success, exploring how our partnership is transforming governance, strengthening reporting, and fostering sector-wide collaboration to improve safety and outcomes.
“We are delighted to be in partnership with Circle Health Group and shortlisted for the Clinical Innovation Award. Throughout our journey together, we’ve worked as a hands-on partner in quality improvement, listening, adapting, and evolving as the partnership has grown. We’re proud of what we’ve achieved together and that this has been recognised with this award.” Rhian Bulmer, Chief Customer Officer at Radar Healthcare
A Unified Approach to Governance
Through partnership with Radar Healthcare, Circle Health Group has delivered measurable improvements in outcomes for all patients, both clinically and operationally. The adoption of Radar Healthcare provided a single source of authority, ensuring users could trust the information they reported and used to make decisions, reflecting trends and incidents across Circle Health Group’s hospital network.
Working closely with the Radar Healthcare team, the organisation implemented the platform at scale, allowing managers and key leaders to cascade CAS Alerts and NICE Guidance updates efficiently to those responsible for implementation. Leveraging the NHS LFPSE initiative, Circle Health Group consolidated 12 legacy systems into a single platform, streamlining governance, incident management, audits, and safety compliance, while enabling ongoing improvements through Quality & Safety Improvement Programmes.
By embedding research into everyday processes, Circle Health Group has transformed how incidents are recorded and analysed. New questions added to Patient Safety Incident Response Forms, for example, around anaesthetic type and falls, allow the team to trend data in ways traditional reporting would miss. Insights such as correlations between general anaesthesia and falls, or the impact of interventions like caffeinated drinks or intentional rounding, now drive real-time quality improvements across the group. Triangulating data across all 54 sites ensures that issues identified in one location can be addressed across the organisation immediately, reducing avoidable harms and improving consistency of care for both private and NHS patients.
Operationally, the system has increased efficiency by reducing duplication, enabling smarter allocation of resources, and shortening the time from incident identification to resolution. Pilot data shows a reduction in preventable incidents, more timely responses to local system partners, and improved patient management.
Measurable CQC Success
Radar Healthcare enabled Circle Health Group to act proactively in a constantly changing regulatory environment. Improving hospital CQC ratings was a core commitment. Changes to the inspection process increased the focus on demonstrating service and governance improvements. Historically, learning from risks was difficult with data spread across multiple systems. Radar Healthcare now provides inspectors with accurate information on incident volumes and the decision-making pathways used to resolve them. This strengthened risk responsiveness and demonstrated Circle Health Group’s commitment to patient safety and regulatory obligations.
Circle Health Group’s focus on quality improvement is reflected in regulatory outcomes: 90% of sites are now rated “Good” or “Outstanding” by the CQC, up from 70% in 2020, with pilot sites such as Droitwich Spa Hospital receiving improved ratings supported directly by Radar Healthcare-enabled improvements.
“The analytics within Radar Healthcare are amazing…teams can focus their attention on the most important areas.”
Learning from Patient Feedback
The ability to view live data across all 54 sites has transformed decision-making. Insights can be shared instantly from one hospital to another, preventing repeated issues and enabling rapid group-wide learning. Live dashboards and national trend data provide governance insights that support both Circle Health Group and wider NHS reporting requirements.
Patient satisfaction remains central to this value. Based on the latest PHIN data, Circle Health Group was the top-rated provider for patient experience in 2024, with 98% rating their experience as “good” or “very good,” and 89% rating it “very good”. Circle Health Group won private hospital group of the year at the 2025 Health Investor Awards and leads in Google reviews, averaging 4.5 stars, with 10 hospitals achieving over 1,000 reviews, and tops reputation.com’s customer service scores (856 vs. nearest competitor 602).
Radar Healthcare allows Circle Health Group to track and analyse themes in compliments, complaints, and reviews – from communication and billing to clinical care – informing policy and process improvements in real time. As Donna Dorran, Quality and Risk Manager and IPC Lead at Harbour Hospital, explains: “Radar Healthcare helps us move from reactive to proactive, from siloed data to unified action. It’s transformed how we deliver safe care at scale.”
The shortlisting for the HSJ Independent Healthcare Provider Awards reflects the impact of this partnership and the shared commitment to improving patient outcomes. By consolidating systems, enhancing governance, and supporting NHS standards, Circle Health Group and Radar Healthcare have demonstrated how collaboration and innovation drives meaningful change across the health and care sectors.
Collaborating for Sector Wide Impact
With over two million patients seen annually, Circle Health Group recognises its responsibility to lead in patient safety and innovation. By sharing best practice through collaborative networks, sector forums, and published insights, the organisation ensures that its innovations extend beyond its own sites, influencing safer, higher-quality care across the sector.
Circle Health Group’s active involvement in Radar Healthcare’s user forums, beta testing initiatives, and IHPN networks enables the organisation to share operational insights, product feedback, and governance expertise. These contributions help other providers strengthen governance, reduce variation and improve safety standards.
Circle Health Group also works to foster collaboration and bring communities together to influence safer, high-quality care across the NHS and the wider independent sector. This approach aims to improve patient safety for all, creating a shared commitment to progress and ensuring that outcomes benefit not just individual organisations and sites, but the entire healthcare ecosystem.
“The Radar Healthcare User Groups let us share best practices and see how others are using the system. At the first meeting, we all realised we were using Radar Healthcare differently. Since then, we’ve worked towards more consistent usage. It’s also helped build relationships across the independent sector, which is important. While we may be commercial competitors, there should be no competition in patient safety.”
Award-Winning Collaboration in Healthcare Innovation
The HSJ Independent Healthcare Providers Awards shortlisting recognises the impact of the partnership between Circle Health Group and Radar Healthcare. From streamlining governance and improving incident reporting to driving sector-wide collaboration, the partnership reflects how clinical innovations enhance the quality of care and patient outcomes.
