The Heart MCR
A proposed charity-owned, clinician-led specialist cardiac facility on the Wythenshawe Hospital campus.
Designed to increase specialist cardiac capacity, support high-acuity care and reinvest long-term value for public benefit across Manchester and the North West.
Greater Manchester has a cardiovascular crisis. Clinical excellence needs capacity behind it.
Cardiovascular disease is one of the region’s defining health challenges and a major driver of inequality. Greater Manchester has some of the worst cardiovascular outcomes in England, with mortality closely linked to deprivation.
Manchester also has one of the country’s most accomplished cardiac teams, based at Wythenshawe Hospital. The constraint is not ambition or talent. It is infrastructure: beds, theatres, diagnostics and the operational headroom that complex cardiac care demands.
The Heart MCR responds with a practical proposition: build new specialist cardiac capacity, lock the long-term value into a charity and reinvest surpluses for cardiovascular health across the North West.
Rooted in a specific place, and in a specific clinical reality.
A new cardiac facility at Wythenshawe would not start from scratch. It would sit alongside the Northwest Heart Centre, close to the specialist teams and emergency backup that complex cardiac care requires.
Campus adjacency
The proposed facility would sit alongside the Northwest Heart Centre, with direct physical and clinical proximity to specialist NHS backup.
High-acuity cardiac focus
Cardiac surgery, interventional cardiology, diagnostics and specialist critical care can be designed around the pathway from the outset.
Capacity where it matters
Critical care is often the practical bottleneck. Additional cardiac critical-care capacity changes what the pathway can safely support.
Manchester institution
The ambition is civic as well as clinical: a permanent, self-sustaining institution for cardiovascular health in the North West.
A clinician-designed environment for complex cardiac care.
The Heart MCR is intended to bring advanced cardiac surgery, interventional cardiology, specialist critical care and diagnostics together in one purpose-built setting. The aim is to create room where the system is under greatest strain and to build a platform capable of supporting the next era of cardiac care.
Specialist cardiac critical care
Ten new cardiac critical-care beds, designed to relieve one of the practical bottlenecks in complex cardiac pathways.
Cardiac surgery and recovery
Two cardiac operating theatres, including one hybrid theatre, with dedicated theatre recovery and clinical adjacencies designed by the teams who understand the work.
Interventional cardiology
Two catheter laboratories, radial lounge capacity and ambulance-access capability for primary PCI, subject to final clinical and operational design.
Diagnostics and outpatients
Outpatient, echo, ECG, CT, MR and wider diagnostic capacity within a single cardiac environment rather than a fragmented pathway.
Charity-owned. Clinician-led. Public-benefit locked.
The Foundation is intended to own and control the facility group. Private healthcare income supports the operating model, with surpluses permanently applied to cardiovascular health improvement across the region.
RiSE is the project sponsor and development originator, helping assemble the structure, adviser group, funding route and clinical design proposition. The operating structure will be finalised through legal, tax, regulatory and MFT discussions.
The Heart MCR Foundation
Charity ownership, mission lock and public-benefit deployment.
HoldCo
Strategic group oversight, wholly owned by the Foundation.
PropCo
Estate, construction, financing and lifecycle maintenance.
OpCo
CQC provider, patient contracts, quality and clinical governance.
Clinical LLP
Clinical and operational delivery under contract to OpCo, with NHS, RiSE and clinician participation.
Serious people around a serious proposition.
The formation-stage board is deliberately lean, senior and credible. The wider adviser group is being developed around legal, property, funding, healthcare and delivery workstreams.
Adviser ecosystem
- RiSE, project sponsor and development originator
- Deloitte Debt Advisory, preliminary lender engagement
- JMW, charity formation and legal support
- Bruntwood, campus masterplan and property delivery discussions
- Strategic advisers and senior healthcare supporters
Dr Julian Barker
Consultant cardiothoracic anaesthetist at Wythenshawe, with more than twenty years in cardiac theatres and specialist critical care.
Professor Simon Ray
NHS England National Clinical Director for Heart Disease and deputy chair of the British Heart Foundation.
Sir Bruce Keogh KBE
Former National Medical Director of NHS England, senior cardiac surgeon and national healthcare leader.
Paul Exton
Senior perfusionist at Wythenshawe and long-standing member of the cardiac theatre team.
Non-NHS capital to build capacity, with long-term value retained locally.
The current working assumption is an £80 million four-storey clinical facility, inclusive of VAT assumed to be irrecoverable because the main clinical floors are expected to be used predominantly for exempt supplies of medical care.
The preferred capital route remains philanthropy plus senior debt. A broader mission-aligned structure may also include long-term patient capital on capped, non-controlling terms, while preserving Foundation control and the public-benefit mission.
Early seed funding is being sought to support legal, procurement, tax, financial and delivery work needed to move from alignment to execution.
Capital story
Four clinical floors, including irrecoverable VAT on the current prudent assumption.
Separate taxable innovation activity, with VAT expected to be recoverable where properly attributable.
Seed gifts, conditional pledges and strategic introductions are the current priority.
From founding conviction to executable project.
The project is still pre-contract, but the workstreams are now real: governance, MFT engagement, adviser input, lender soundings, delivery support and founder funding.
The Heart MCR Foundation is being established, with the Charity Commission application being prepared.
Professor Simon Ray, Sir Bruce Keogh and Paul Exton form the proposed founding trustee group, with one further finance or commercial trustee being sought.
MFT has engaged with the cardiac proposal over several months, with the route and procurement position now a key near-term workstream.
Deloitte Debt Advisory has begun informal lender soundings, with focus on construction risk, equity, contingency and downside protections.
Bruntwood has confirmed it would like to support the project through its MFT campus role, subject to normal approvals and processes.
Founders have committed seed capital and early supporter conversations are now focused on matching seed funding, conditional pledges and strategic introductions.
For founding supporters, advisers and strategic partners.
The Heart MCR is being shared privately with a limited number of individuals and organisations whose support, judgement or introductions could help shape the next stage.
founders@theheartmcr.orgPrivate materials
Detailed materials are available only to approved recipients. The site should act as the front door, with sensitive documents controlled separately.