The Conservative Government has launched a new drive to divert £19 billion – almost a tenth of the health budget – to profit-making firms following orders from Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to “turbocharge” use of the private sector in our NHS.

Ministers announced the plan on August 4, 2023 as they admitted the record 7.5 million appointment waiting list in England is likely to increase further.

This is not the solution. Dr Tony O’Sullivan, co-chair of Keep Our NHS Public, said in the Daily Mirror:

Investing yet more public money into the private sector is not the answer. Punishingly low pay in the NHS and care has pushed some struggling staff towards the private sector leaving the NHS diagnostics and clinical services desperately short. 

There is no spare capacity in the private sector that does not do further damage to the NHS, taking NHS staff away, diverting NHS funding, cherry picking non-complex care and using the NHS to send back complications from private treatment. It is NHS capacity that must urgently be rebuilt.

The Government has clearly found additional funds for healthcare, but has chosen to spend it lining the pockets of shareholders instead of funding a public service, a choice that further erodes the capability of the NHS to deliver timely treatment for all.

Keep Our NHS Public demands the Government invests in the NHS instead of pouring cash into private sector.

We know the public model works. When it was first created in 1948 it quickly became one of the best healthcare services in the world.

As Keep Our NHS Public co-chair Dr John Puntis said on Sky News at lunch time, the private sector is ‘not about minimising costs but maximising profits’.That the Government is telling the public the private sector can tackle waiting lists is dangerously misleading – and is in fact the worst possible solution to the crisis. A crisis let’s not forget, created by this Government’s under-investment in our NHS.

Find out more on KeepOurNHSPublic.