Private health provider Assura Medical has been rebranded as Virgin Care, two years after Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Group purchased a controlling stake in the company.
The firm, which operates 80 NHS services across the UK including a host of GP practices, walk-in centres and Darzi clinics, said the name change reflects changes in the company's ‘staff values' that have aligned ‘working culture with that of a Virgin company'.
The Virgin Group bought a majority stake in Assura Medical in March 2010, but Virgin bosses opted against changing the company name at the time of the deal. Virgin Care said that ‘Patients and services are not affected' by the rebrand and the appearance of GP practices would not be changed, with standard NHS branding used.
Bart Johnson, chief executive of Virgin Care, said: ‘We are delighted to take on the Virgin name which marks another chapter in our evolution. When Virgin got on board two years ago we set about changing our culture and how we did things to help us focus on providing safer, accessible and high quality NHS services.'
‘We are now providing over 80 NHS services and we aim for each one of them to be good enough for our own families. Later this month we will treat our 1.5 millionth patient and we believe the time is now right to take on the Virgin Care name.'
