Private hospitals bid for bigger chunk of NHS budget in 'privatisation plan' considered by Gov

Experts tell the Mirror the £1 billion plan - which would be the biggest NHS outsourcing drive since the hated 2012 Tory reforms - risks drawing medics out of the NHS to work for profit-making firms

Private hospitals are bidding for a bigger chunk of the NHS budget in what critics are calling a "privatisation plan".

A host of leading experts have slammed the £1 billion plan being considered by the Government, with one arguing: "Every pound spent by the state on private healthcare is a failure." It would be the biggest increase in NHS outsourcing since the hated 2012 Tory reforms which saw David Cameron’s austerity government open the NHS up to the private sector.

The Independent Healthcare Providers Network (IHPN), which represents firms such as Bupa, Circle Health Group and Care UK, has written to Chancellor Rachael Reeves and Health Secretary Wes Streeting bidding for the work, the Telegraph reported.

Leading expert Chris Thomas recently led the Institute For Public Policy Research’s three-year inquiry into the state of health in Britain. He told the Mirror : “Every pound spent by the state on private healthcare is a failure, only necessary because of misguided reform and years of austerity. Private providers are no knights in shining armour. Evidence shows they cherry pick the most profitable patients and procedures, charge more overall, and are subsidised by government spending on workforce training.”

Dr Tony O’Sullivan, co-chair of Keep Our NHS Public, said: “It is economically and logistically illiterate to ignore the damage done to the most cost-effective healthcare - a well funded NHS - by a short term ‘privatisation plan’ of expensive gimmicks using private providers.”

Health Secretary Mr Streeting has been open about his desire to use profit-making firms to bring down the NHS backlog. He said before the General Election he would "go further than New Labour ever did". He said: "If you want to understand my appetite for reform, think New Labour on steroids." New Labour funded 100 new NHS hospitals with controversial Private Finance Initiatives (PFIs). Around £13 billion was borrowed for these but the NHS repayment bill was over £80 billion. Even when fully repaid, the public does not own the hospitals.

Previous outsourcing drives also saw private hospitals cherry pick relatively simple - and profitable - procedures such as cataract, hip and knee operations while leaving the NHS to pick up the pieces when complications occur. They also remove such simple procedures from the NHS, which uses them to train NHS surgeons up for the more complex procedures which the health service has to carry out. Dr O’Sullivan added: "Pouring money into private operatives has seen an explosion in profitable - easy but non-priority cataract operations - while patients waiting with urgent and more complex conditions are going blind because NHS surgeons, anaesthetists and nurses are attracted away from already struggling eye departments.”

Tim Gardner, assistant director at the Health Foundation said: “Private hospitals largely rely on the same pool of doctors as the NHS and tend to treat less complex patients, so is not an option for everyone waiting for NHS care. Our analysis shows that the patients who are more likely to benefit from NHS-funded care in a private hospital are living in wealthier parts of England. Although private hospitals can continue to play an important role in supporting the NHS, the sector still plays a limited role overall. Even a major expansion is no substitute for the sustained efforts needed to tackle the backlog and need for wider investment in making the NHS fit for the future.”

The annual rate of NHS funding rises - to keep pace with new tech and the ageing population - slowed from 6% under New Labour to only 2% under the Conservatives, according to an analysis by the Institute for Fiscal Studies. The average rise since the NHS was founded is around 4% which is still lower than other major European countries.

Under the new plan, the IHPN says private hospitals would use their greater share of the NHS budget to build cancer diagnostic centres, surgery units and intensive care facilities. The Telegraph reported it would see 7.5 million NHS patients a year treated in private hospitals - up from around five million now. In the letter to Ms Reeves and Mr Streeting, David Hare, the chief executive of the IHPN, said: "The forthcoming Budget represents a real opportunity to make good on the government's pre-election commitments of working in partnership with the private sector over the long-term to use the capital, capacity and capability which is there in the sector to improve services for NHS patients."

The 2012 Health and Social Care Act was the brainchild of then-Health Secretary Andrew Lansley which fragmented the NHS while ushering in the private sector and an era of “competition” between health bodies. The recent Darzi review on the state of the NHS said these reforms caused “lasting damage” and were “without international precedent”.

The separate IPPR cross-party Commission on Health and Prosperity – also chaired by top surgeon Lord Ara Darzi as well as former chief medical officer Dame Sally Davies - found the UK came sixth out of the G7 nations for healthcare spending. It found Britain spends only 11.1% of its gross domestic product (GDP), compared to 16.5% in the US and 12.6% in Germany. The only G7 country to spend less was Italy at 9%.

Mr Thomas, who headed the IPPR Commission, added: “While private providers might have a role in this moment of crisis, the end point must be restoration of a NHS that works for all. Reassuringly, the new government has been clear that restoring a brilliant, publicly owned and run NHS is their vision, and that use of private providers is a means not an end.”

The NHS waiting list in England is 7.64 million appointments and the Government has declared the NHS "broken". Before the pandemic in December 2019 the waiting list stood at a then-record 4.6 million – about double the figure under the previous Labour government.

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesman said: "This government is steadfast in its commitment to the founding principles of the NHS. Where there is spare capacity in the private sector which can be used to treat patients, on NHS terms, free at the point of use, we will use it to cut waiting lists."