It’s not often that a hospital is as famous as the celebrities it treats, but Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, nestled between Beverly Hills and West Hollywood, is where Frank Sinatra and Elizabeth Taylor died, Kate Hudson was born and has given birth, and Britney Spears was taken after a very public meltdown. It’s where Patrick Swayze fought pancreatic cancer, Madonna had hernia surgery and Victoria Beckham welcomed daughter Harper into the world. And last week, it opened its first outpost outside the US, in London.
The capital’s clinic is as swish as you’d expect: a four-storey townhouse on New Cavendish Street, private consultation rooms with an air of quiet luxury (the impossibly chic furniture is by Cattelan Italia) and on-site diagnostics including DEXA, ultrasound and ECHO scanning, plus access to specialist physicians back in Los Angeles. Its arrival in the capital was marked by a starry champagne reception at the Wallace Collection.
Medical director Dr Sandeep Kapur, who trained at Guy’s and St Thomas’, is a former NHS GP and a veteran of both the Cleveland and Mayo clinics in the US. He says the clinic aims to blend “the best of the US, such as its attention to detail, along with the best of what we know in the UK”.
He likens the approach of Cedars-Sinai to the role a family doctor used to play
The UK’s private health care market is estimated to be worth around £13billion, and growing, according to healthcare analysts LaingBuisson. Kapur says it’s a system that can be confusing to navigate. “We hear from patients calling up a specialist for this, another for that, trying to navigate their own way through health issues. But what’s often missing is a coordinator of care — a team who truly understands the patient.”
He likens the approach of Cedars-Sinai London to the role a family doctor used to play. “They would know everything about a family and the patient, and if necessary be on call whenever they were needed.”
That ethos extends into the clinic’s approach to diagnostics. In an era of full-body MRI scans and AI-interpreted test results, Kapur insists on talking first, testing second.
“With any test, you want to think about what you’re doing, why you’re doing it, and what you’re going to do with the information — because it can lead to information overload and not necessarily any answers.” The biggest source of patient anxiety, he argues, isn’t a bad result, “it’s uncertainty”. The consultation rooms have been designed accordingly: bespoke granite-topped desks that position the doctor facing the patient, away from their screen, with art and calming colour palettes on the walls. Kapur uses AI scribing so he can maintain eye contact rather than scribbling notes. He employs tech that has been approved by government medical bodies that enable virtual monitoring.
While “longevity” dominates most wellness conversations, Kapur prefers the term “health span”. “We don’t know how long anyone’s going to get. What we want to do is make sure your health span matches your lifespan.” The route there, he says, runs through unsexy basics — blood pressure, cholesterol, glucose, a regular physician.
Prices are on application, depending on services required. A look at the average charges for the LA hospital in 2019-20 lists a heart transplant costing $3,323,315. But Kapur hopes the clinic’s emphasis on preventative medicine will resonate beyond its immediate clientele.
For a hospital with Cedars-Sinai’s celebrity reputation, Kapur offers a surprisingly humble pitch. What he says patients really value is a doctor who knows your name, looks you in the eye, and replies in seconds on WhatsApp. This, Kapur says, is the future of healthcare.
