Church Wilne Rotary members welcomed Duncan Kilburn from Nuffield Health to its speaker meeting at the Royal Oak in Ockbrook on Monday 9th January. Duncan in his introduction spoke a little about his recent journey in the fitness business and how he had benefited since 2007 through his personal training and is now a health and fitness trainer with Nuffield Health. They are located next to the Derbyshire Cricket Club and were formally known as Virgin Active. In 2015 Nuffield Health took over 33 Virgin Active sites including the Derby venue.
The members and visitors heard about the history of Nuffield as a company. In January 1957 the British United Provident Association (BUPA) established the Nursing Home Charitable Trust as they wanted through the Trust to acquire or build community hospital facilities properly equipped for the demands of modern medicine. Their first hospital was purchased in the late 1950s in Bournemouth and in the next ten years the Trust acquired and modernized a total of six dilapidate nursing homes and built seven new ones. After they opened their first purpose built hospital at Woking in 1962 six others quickly followed until in 1966 when they opened their flagship hospital in London. The Trusts policy is to run all sites on a strictly self-supporting basis through non-profit-making lines.
In 1983 the trading name of the company was changed to Nuffield Hospitals and after 30 years they had to change their approach to fundraising from actively seeking donations as it became clear that the rising costs of modern medicine were too expensive to be met that way. Since then they have moved to recovering the full cost of its services through fees. Duncan spoke about their new approach from around 2006 with the acquisition of several health and fitness clubs culminating in July 2015 when they acquired 33 Virgin Active sites including Derby
In summary Duncan said “We are an Ex-Virgin Active club recently taken over by Nuffield who have used their amazing facilities and staff that Virgin had and combined it with their pioneering approach to healthcare which brings together fitness, prevention and cure”
Then Rotarian John Barrett who is a member of Nuffield Health in Derby was asked several leading questions by the speaker. John said he visits the club 3 to 4 times a week, has enrolled on a personal fitness course and since joining about 8 years ago he feels reasonable fit, is self motivated, enjoys meeting regular friends, never gets tired and fingers crossed has not been to the doctors for 6/7 years. To find out more email
The Club’s vote of thanks was given by Chris Tew who said it had been an interesting and informative talk and we can all see the importance that fitness gives to our everyday life.
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