Linklaters

Key industry issues as we see them:

• Globally, changing demographic trends continue to lead many countries towards an ageing population. This, coupled with an increasing demand for higher standards of living, increases in personal income and health insurance coverage (since individuals tend to demand proportionately more medical care as their real income increases and insured individuals tend to demand more medical care than the uninsured), has resulted in a substantial increase in demand for healthcare services. For private healthcare providers this presents opportunities for growth and many have entered into a period of expansion/consolidation.
  
• In response to the economic downturn many national governments have significantly reduced budgets for social care funding, thus profit margins for publicly funded patients are much reduced.

• Many large care home providers who relied on a strategy of buy-to-let as a means of funding growth are now suffering at the hands of increasing rent prices on the properties that they now lease back.

• For national governments without state funded health policies the ageing population brings increasing pressure to ensure affordable healthcare for their populations and increasing pressures to provide the full range of clinical services and hospital groups, whereas governments with state funded healthcare, face the challenge of increased demand on healthcare services coupled with a decreasing budget.