Disrupting UK Private Care: Why Surgeons Shouldn't Spend Sundays Writing Invoices
As National Health System delays persist and more Britons turn to private care, Andrew Archibald argues the real bottleneck is not medical talent but broken infrastructure. MEDMIN helps consultants offload admin, billing, and patient coordination so private practice can work like a modern business.
TAMPA BAY, Fla., July 9, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- The UK has not met its 18-week referral-to-treatment target since 2015, and by the end of March 2026, 6.02 million patients in England were still waiting for 7.11 million hospital treatments. At the same time, demand for private care has climbed, with nearly one in eight inhabitants holding private medical insurance. Yet the consultants expected to absorb that overflow are still working within a private practice system that runs like a fragmented industry. On this episode of Disruption Interruption, host Karla Jo Helms (KJ) speaks with Andrew Archibald, CEO of MEDMIN, about why the UK's private healthcare journey remains operationally broken, why top consultants are still functioning like amateur office managers, and why fixing the patient experience starts with fixing systems around the doctor. As Archibald puts it, "people have just learnt to put up with inadequate systems."
Why Private Practice Still Feels Stuck in the Past
Archibald says the structure of UK private practice is the root of the problem. Most consultants still spend the bulk of their week in the National Health Service (NHS), where systems, staffing, and operational support are provided for them. But the moment they step into private practice, they become sole traders responsible for everything else. "These incredibly capable people," he says, "are suddenly expected to handle really mundane tasks far outside the work they were trained to do."
He still speaks to consultants who spend Sunday mornings going through invoices instead of recovering from the week or spending time with family. Over time, they patch together note-taking support, billing agencies, accountants, record systems, and ad hoc admin help, but the pieces do not work as one. The experience is clumsy for the consultant and equally frustrating for the patient trying to navigate it.
The issue is cultural as much as operational. The UK system has long been shaped by scarcity, since both doctors and patients have become too used to substandard admin, poor communication, and outdated technology. In Archibald's words, "The healthcare system in the UK is very poor at investing in technology, in the administrative things that make the whole thing get better." What should feel like a specialist care journey often feels, instead, like a workaround.
Building the Business Around the Doctor
MEDMIN was built to remove that extra task for clinicians. The company as a total practice management partner that takes care of the operational layer around private practice, from billing and note management to insurer registration, hospital onboarding, patient communication, and profile marketing. Instead of asking consultants to figure out private practice by trial and error, MEDMIN gives them a system.
The model is built for doctors entering private practice for the first time. It helps new consultants get set up with hospitals, insurers, systems, and patient-facing tools, while also steering them toward the right local opportunities instead of the most obvious or prestigious ones. The company's internal data shows that consultants who join MEDMIN as new-to-practice doctors grow their earnings by 300% between year one and year three.
For Archibald, the next step is not just scaling support across the UK, but using AI to remove even more friction from the healthcare journey. MEDMIN is already developing an AI-powered medical administrative assistant that can take routine tasks off human teams, but his larger point extends beyond technology. UK healthcare does not need more people tolerating broken systems. It needs people willing to challenge them. In his words, "People have just got used to poor systems and poor services, and they kind of accept it. And it's about time to say, 'stop accepting it.'"
Links
Disrupting the UK's Healthcare Journey: Why It's Easier to Book a Flight Than a Surgery, with Andrew Archibald
Disruption Interruption is the podcast where you will hear from today's biggest Industry Disruptors. Learn what motivated them to bring about innovation and how they overcame opposition to adoption.
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/andrew-archibald-363050a
Company Website:https://medmin.co.uk
About Disruption Interruption™
Disruption is happening on an unprecedented scale, impacting all manner of industries — MedTech, Finance, IT, eCommerce, shipping, logistics, and more — and COVID has moved their timelines up a full decade or more. But WHO are these disruptors and when did they say, "THAT'S IT! I'VE HAD IT!"? Time to Disrupt and Interrupt with host Karla Jo "KJ" Helms, veteran communications disruptor. KJ interviews badasses who are disrupting their industries and altering economic networks that have become antiquated with an establishment resistant to progress. She delves into uncovering secrets from industry rebels and quiet revolutionaries that uncover common traits — and not-so-common — that are changing our economic markets… and lives. Visit the world's key pioneers that persist to success, despite arrows in their backs at www.disruption-interruption.com.
About Andrew Archibald
Andrew Archibald is the CEO of MEDMIN and a healthcare operations leader driven by a long-standing curiosity about how systems work, why they break, and how they can be improved. With more than 20 years in healthcare and change-focused roles that span transformation, operations, and growth, he joined MEDMIN to help scale the Birmingham-based business into a UK-wide platform for private consultants and patients. At MEDMIN, he works to turn fragmented private practice into a more seamless experience by combining operational infrastructure, patient-facing support, and technology that frees doctors to focus on medicine rather than administration.
About Karla Jo Helms
Karla Jo Helms is the Chief Evangelist and Anti-PR® Strategist for JOTO PR Disruptors™. Karla Jo learned firsthand how unforgiving business can be when millions of dollars are on the line — and how the control of public opinion often determines whether one company is happily chosen, or another is brutally rejected. Being an alumnus of crisis management, Karla Jo has worked with litigation attorneys, private investigators, and the media to help restore companies of goodwill into the good graces of public opinion — Karla Jo operates on the ethic of getting it right the first time, not relying on second chances and doing what it takes to excel. Helms speaks globally on public relations, how the PR industry itself has lost its way, and how, in the right hands, corporations can harness the power of Anti-PR to drive markets and impact market perception.
References
- Campbell, D. (2025, January 30). Almost one in eight Britons now has private medical insurance, say healthcare analysts. The Guardian. theguardian.com/society/2025/jan/30/almost-one-in-eight-britons-now-has-private-medical-insurance-say-healthcare-analysts
- Campbell, D. (2025, March 20). Starmer unlikely to fulfil pledge on hospital waiting times, says IFS. The Guardian. theguardian.com/society/2025/mar/20/starmer-unlikely-to-fulfil-pledge-on-hospital-waiting-times-says-ifs
- Financial Times. (2026, May 30). NHS hospitals hit key target on waiting times in boost for Wes Streeting. ft.com/content/61d8217a-1e30-4a96-9fbe-e8536827a3f9?
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SOURCE Disruption Interruption
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