The company's acting chief executive ColinBrown said the losses reflected "a period of great turbulence" for the business but said Strongbow had continued to do well.
"I wouldn't want to see a pilot turning up to fly a plane in shorts and flip-flops, and patients don't want to see a doctor dressed in the kind of thing he or she might wear down to the pub, " says Professor ColinBrown, a retired renal consultant from Sheffield.