Nick Mann is a GP and member of Keep Our NHS Public.

Private sector involvement in NHS treatment centres:

When the Government announced plans on 4 August to rapidly accelerate private sector involvement in the NHS, it was implementing recommendations of the taskforce PM Rishi Sunak set up in December 2022 packed with private industry leads and privateers whose interests reflect further encroachment of the NHS. Thirteen new diagnostic centres were announced put up as action to address the steadily rising NHS waiting lists – currently at 7.6 million. Significantly, 8 of the 13 centres will be run by the private health sector, part of the government target of 160 centres across the country by 2025 many of them already privately-run, backed by previously allocated £2.3 billion from the Treasury. The Government is openly ready to invest funding in the private sector that should be far better spent in building back the capacity of the NHS. However, the government spin that 114 are already up and running is simply a lie: at least 30 are not.

Read the rest of this article on the Keep Our NHS Public website here.