In early June 2025, Totally plc went into administration and its businesses were sold to PHL Group, which assured NHS England that the NHS contracts would continue as normal without interruption.
A profile of PHL Group can be found on a separate page. This page will no longer updated, but kept for historical information.
Totally plc provided a range of healthcare services in community settings, GP surgeries, and prisons. Its out-of-hospital services included physiotherapy, podiatry, dermatology, referral management services, clinical health coaching, and since October 2017, urgent care centres, out-of-hours GP services and 111 services. The company had been investing heavily in the insourcing sector prior to its financial collapse. The company’s contracts were with both the NHS and private sector organisations.
Updated: June 2025
Strategy
Company failure
In June 2025, Totally plc collapsed and went into administration. The company’s urgent care, elective care, and corporate wellbeing subsidiaries were sold to PHL Group.
The collapse into administration followed several months of financial difficulties for the company. The company reported that it was due to a combination of factors including the loss of an NHS 111 contract, and reduced profit from ongoing contracts, plus a potential medical negligence claim from 2018 that could exceed its £10 million insurance cover.
Recent years saw the company lose significant contracts, including in 2023 contracts for urgent care centres in North West London (NWL). The NWL ICB awarded the contracts to the region’s four acute trusts after terminating a short-term contract with Totally (as Greenbrook Healthcare) following performance and staffing concerns.
Administrators were appointed after a strategic review failed to attract any solvent bids for the parent company, and its shares were suspended from trading on AIM (Alternative Investment Market).
PHL Group reports that the NHS services will continue without disruption and that 600 jobs have been safeguarded.
PHL Group (Partnering Health Limited) was founded in 2009 and in March 2025 the company merged with Malling Health. PHL Group runs an urgent care centre in Lymington, Hampshire, but with its merger with Malling Health it added a number of GP practices, out-of-hours services and urgent care centres to its business.
Recent history
Totally plc grew over recent years using a fairly aggressive strategy in relation to acquisitions and seeking out new opportunities according to the company’s website . The company had a “‘buy and build’ expansion strategy”, seeking to expand its range of services, with the ultimate aim to “become one of the leading out of hospital healthcare providers in the UK.”
Totally targeted the out of hospital healthcare market and insourcing. The latter is where in an effort to bring down waiting lists, hospital trusts contract private companies to carry out procedures, such as diagnostics or elective surgery, using the trust's facilities while they are not being used by the NHS, such as at weekends.
In first half of 2016, Totally plc acquired two companies - Premier Physical Healthcare Limited and About Health Limited, then in November 2016, it acquired Optimum Physiotherapy. In October 2017, Totally plc acquired Vocare (previously Northern Doctors Urgent Care); this is the acquisition that gave the company the most contracts in the NHS.
In June 2019, the board announced that its enlarged share capital has recently been admitted to trading on AIM (Alternative Investments Market) and the company had completely acquired Greenbrook Healthcare, which runs primary care centres, urgent care and walk-in centres in London and the south east.
Premier Physical Healthcare and Optimum Physiotherapy provided physiotherapy and podiatry to NHS patients, various police forces and prison sites and provide occupational health and ergonomic services to corporate and private clients.
About Health Limited was a provider of dermatology and referral management services to the NHS. About Health had been providing community based health services under contract to the NHS since 2009.
Vocare was a provider of urgent care services to approximately 9.2 million patients across the UK through urgent care centres, GP out-of-hours services, integrated urgent care centres and the NHS 111 service.
Totally plc also had a subsidiary - Totally Health - which provided clinical health coaching via a business to business model to the NHS and the private sector as well as direct to consumer health coaching to individuals and families.
The subsidiary, My Clinical Coach, launched in 2016, was a direct-to-consumer UK health-coaching service for people with long-term health conditions or general ‘wellness’ concerns. Individuals or their families could choose to subscribe to the monthly subscription based service. The service supported the management of long term conditions in patients such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), diabetes, asthma, heart disease and smoking cessation and obesity management.
In October 2019, Totally plc created a new business focused on insourcing, Totally Healthcare, which delivered insourcing services across the UK and Ireland. Insourcing is where a hospital trust employs a private company to carry out procedures on NHS patients within the hospital trust using the hospital's facilities. For example, insourcing companies would provide a team to carry out elective surgery in a hospital's theatres on weekends when the NHS is not carrying out surgery. In the first few months of operations the business secured contracts across the UK and Ireland delivering bespoke services to reduce hospital waiting lists. These services were put on hold during the first months of the Covid-19 pandemic as all elective healthcare was suspended. By the end of 2020, Totally Healthcare was back working. The company viewed insourcing as a major growth area and in March 2022 acquired Pioneer Healthcare, a leading insourcing company, for £13 million.
Totally Plc had three divisions: Urgent Care (Greenbrook Healthcare and Vocare); Planned Care (About Health, Optimum Physiotherapy, Premier Physical Healthcare, and My Clinical Coach); and Insourcing (originally Totally Healthcare now known as Pioneer Healthcare).
Totally was developing a range of corporate fitness, wellbeing and occupational health services under the division Energy Fitness Professionals (EFP).
Financials
Totally announced on 14 February 2025 that it expected to report £85.0 million revenue for FY25. The board of directors of Totally confirmed that the company will have much reduced financial results for FY2025. This follows the negative impact of a combination of factors including "a slower than expected ramp up of a recent contract win and reduced operating margins as higher margin contracts have unwound, principally NHS111. The Company had indicated in its previous outlook update that it may have been possible to redeploy people/costs associated with this contract within the business, however, this has not been possible."
The company carried out a strategic review, but in early June, Totally announced its intention to appoint administrators after its strategic review failed to attract any solvent bids for the parent company. The company's shares were suspended from trading on AIM (alternative investment market) of the London Stock Exchange.
Totally plc's annual accounts for the year to the end of 31 March 2024. In this period, Totally plc reported revenues of £106.7 million, down 21% on 2023, which resulted in a loss before tax of £3.9 million, compared to a profit before tax of £1.8 million.
For this 12 month period the Urgent Care division reported revenue of £76.8 million (2023: £98.8 million), the Elective Care division, which includes Pioneer Healthcare, had revenue of £27.9 million (2023: £35.2 million). The vast majority of revenue is from NHS contracts. The Corporate Wellbeing division had revenue of £2.0 million (2023: £1.7 million).
Urgent care revenue dropped in the 12 month period to £76.8 million primarily due to the end of contracts for the delivery of urgent treatment centres in the North West London area. At the end of 2024, Totally’s contract to deliver NHS 111 services in Staffordshire came to an end. Totally's Urgent Care teams responded to the needs of more than 1.8 million patients either through NHS 111, at urgent treatment centres, within GP out of hours contracts or other services. The number of calls taken within the company's NHS 111 services increased by 31% as the new contract for NHS 111 resilience services drove increased volumes. In January 2024, the contract was extended for a further year, with greater volumes and a contract value of c. £13 million (previous contract value £10 million). At the end of year, contracts for the delivery of GPOOH services in Yorkshire
came to an end.
In March 2017, the company raised £17.6 million for its strategy of company acquisitions within the UK out-of-hospital healthcare market; this was partially used to acquired Vocare in October 2017 for £11 million.
Vocare was originally a not-for-profit organisation but on 31 December 2015, Northern Doctors Urgent Care Ltd (the original company) converted from a Community Interest Company (CIC) to a private company limited by shares. The two brothers, John and Michael Harrison, who set up the original company made £4.7 million each from the sale.
Contracts
Pioneer Healthcare
Totally's insourcing subsidiary which is listed on the NHS Share Business Service national framework agreement for insourcing. The companies listed have already gone through a competitive tendering procedure to be put on the list and can be used by trusts without additional contract tendering. An initial framework began back in 2018 and ran until September 2022. A new framework began in July 2023 and runs until July 2027.
Vocare
Totally plc, as Vocare, has run a number of GP out-of-hours services, integrated urgent care services and 111 services over the past decade or more. In early 2025 the company listed eight urgent care centres on its website. These contracts are still ongoing under PHL Group.
The urgent care centres are in Malton, Scarborough, Selby, and York in North Yorkshire; Staffordshire House urgent care centre in Stoke; Watford urgent treatment centre in Hertfordshire, and in south east London, the urgent care centres at Princess Royal University Hospital, Beckenham Beacon, and King’s College Hospital.
In early 2025, Vocare had two NHS 111 contracts, one in Newcastle upon Tyne and one in Staffordshire.
Under the name, Northern Doctors Urgent Care (NDUC), Vocare delivers urgent care and out-of-hours GP services to 1.5 million patients in Northumberland, North and South Tyneside and Newcastle. The company also manages the North East NHS 111 service, in partnership with the North East Ambulance Service.
Through Staffordshire Doctors Urgent Care (StDUC), Vocare provides GP led out-of-hours care for Staffordshire and the NHS 111 service across the whole of Staffordshire serving a population of over one million people. In February 2021 it was announced that Vocare will continue to provide integrated urgent care services for the Staffordshire and Stoke clinical commissioning groups for a further 12 months and in February 2022 a further 12month extension was awarded.
As Yorkshire Doctors Urgent Care (YDUC) Vocare runs an Integrated urgent Care service in Scarborough and Ryedale. This includes urgent care centres at Scarborough Hospital and Malton Hospital. YDUC also runs a GP out-of-hours service for the Vale of York at York Hospital and the GP OOH Service based inside Selby War Memorial Hospital. Vocare also manages a new urgent care service covering the east of the county and Rutland. Vocare delivers urgent care for minor injuries and illnesses from 34 GP practices across the region and urgent care centres in Oadby, Oakham, Market Harborough and Melton Mowbray. In February 2021, Vocare's contract for GP OOH service was extended by 2 months until March 2022; this was valued at £900,000.
Previous contracts
Vocare ran a number of GP out-of-hours, urgent care and 111 services in South-West England and London, but these contracts have now ended.
Under the name, Bath and North East Somerset Doctors Urgent Care (BDUC), Vocare provided an integrated urgent care service for Bath, Keynsham & District, Midsomer Norton, Radstock & Chew Valley. The company also provided GP out-of-hours cover for the whole of Bath and North East Somerset and medical cover to Paulton Memorial Hospital and St Martin’s Hospital. In August 2017, Vocare lost the contract to run the urgent-care centre at the Royal United Hospital Bath (RUH). From 1 May 2018, the centre will be run by the Royal United Hospitals Bath NHS Foundation Trust in partnership with B&NES Enhanced Medical Services (BEMS), also a private company.
In November 2017, a contract worth £14.7 million to run a regional urgent-care contract in Bath and North East Somerset was awarded to a consortium of three private health companies, including Vocare. Vocare and BEMS+ will support lead provider Medvivo to run the NHS 111 service across B&NES, Swindon and Wiltshire, the GP out-of-hours service in B&NES and Wiltshire, and telecare monitoring and urgent care and response at home for Wiltshire Council.
As Somerset Doctors Urgent Care (SDUC), Vocare delivered primary out-of-hours care and the 111 service in Somerset and the 111 service in Devon.
Working as South London Doctors Urgent Care (SLDUC), the company worked with SLDOC to provide urgent care centres around the South West London region and as London Doctors Urgent Care (LDUC), it provided an urgent care centre, based at St Mary's Hospital.
In February 2022, Vocare won a two-year contract extension for the provision of GP services to NHS North West London CCG, worth around £1.3m a year. This has now ended. Under the terms of the Contract, will provide GP-led primary care services for Initial Accommodation Centre service users located within 34 hotels in the London borough of Hillingdon and neighbouring boroughs. The contract was initially awarded in February 2020 to meet the primary care needs of individuals seeking asylum in England who were located mainly within Hillingdon in London.
Premier Physical Healthcare
Premier provides physiotherapy and podiatry services via NHS contracts and to private patients. The company has a number of contracts to provide these services to prisons and to police forces.
About Health
About Health is involved in referral management services (RMS).
Totally Health
The subsidiary, Totally Health has contracts with numerous NHS commissioners to deliver the company’s long-term management programme for COPD patients and other patients with chronic conditions. Since 2012, the company’s programmes have been developed and rolled-out for use with patients with other long-term conditions, including diabetes, chronic heart failure and asthma.
The company is also involved with the development of Apps for patients, including Patient Decision Aids (PDAs), that cover 36 specific disease areas.
Greenbrook Healthcare
Acquired in June 2019, Greenbrook Healthcare ran nine urgent care centres and four walk-in centres in London/home counties, an Ealing GP practice, Greenwich GP Out of Hours Service and Hounslow Intermediate Community Response Service. The company no longer runs these services.
In 2023 contracts for urgent care centres in North West London (NWL). The NWL ICB awarded the contracts to the region’s four acute trusts after terminating a short-term contract with Totally (as Greenbrook Healthcare) following performance and staffing concerns.
Concerns
Care Quality
In December 2017, Vocare's urgent care centre at the Royal University Hospital, Bath, was rated 'requires improvement' by the CQC, which found equipment inadequate, including children’s oxygen masks, that had expired at least nine months before. The centre was told to improve its equipment and its leadership and effectiveness. Vocare no longer has this contract. The Paulton urgent care centre in the same area was also rated as 'requires improvement'.
According to the CQC, Wolverhampton Urgent Care Centre inspected in February 2018 was rated as ‘requires improvement’ overall, with criticisms of safety, responsiveness, effectiveness and its leadership. By early 2019, the rating had risen to 'good'. The St Mary’s Urgent Care Centre inspected in June 2018 was rated ‘requires improvement’ for leadership and effectiveness and in June 2019, overall it was rated 'good' but 'requires improvement' for safety.
In September 2017, Vocare’s service in Staffordshire, run under name Staffordshire Doctors Urgent Care, was given a ‘requires improvement’ rating by the CQC. Inspectors reported that the safety, effectiveness and leadership of the urgent care service was not up to standard, with lower standards at the weekends with under-pressure staff struggling to meet performance and response time targets. The urgent care centre North Staffordshire run by SDUC was rated 'inadequate' in June 2018; it was rated inadequate on safe, effective and well-led measures and was only good on the caring measure.
In August 2017, Vocare’s out-of-hours GP services in Somerset was rated inadequate by the Care Quality Commission following an inspection and it was put in special measures. Soon after the BBC received an anonymous letter, seemingly from a Vocare employee, which claimed that “night-time doctor shifts had not been filled, and doctors were brought in from as far away as Newcastle to plug gaps in out-of-hours cover.”
It also claimed “Vocare hired doctors without carrying out adequate background checks.” The BBC was told by a former Vocare HR manager that “he agreed with most of the claims, and agreed there was inadequate vetting of agency doctors.”
When asked by the BBC about Vocare’s service, the commissioning CCG said that the service was still "unacceptable" but that although it had considered cancelling the contract, as winter pressures were just beginning, it was considered too much of a risk.
