DOCTORS have spoken out after Keir Starmer unveiled the NHS’s growing use of private healthcare this week.
The Prime Minister said more patients will be sent for treatment in private hospitals under Government plans to slash the NHS waiting list.
Under a new deal outlined by the Department of Health – a devolved issue in Scotland - women on gynaecological waiting lists and orthopaedics patients are among those who will be offered treatment in the private sector, all funded by the NHS.
Private operators will receive an extra £2.5 billion a year in funding under Starmer’s new plans.
Starmer acknowledged that some people will “not like” the expansion of the use of the private sector but said: “To cut waiting times as dramatically as possible, our approach must be totally unburdened by dogma.”
However, the plans have faced criticism with Dr Tony O’Sullivan, the co-chair of Keep Our NHS Public, saying: “The commitment of Keir Starmer and Wes Streeting to long-term contracts with the private sector threatens to permanently embed the profit-taking parasite in the NHS host, undermining the prospect of NHS recovery as a publicly provided universal service meeting the needs of the population.
“Starmer says he will ‘not let ideology stand in the way’ but it is their ideological choice that will stand in the way of sustainable NHS recovery
“Safe and prompt community care will only be delivered through an urgent expansion of skilled staff.”
The Government has said it will slash waiting times by:
- Creating a bigger network of community diagnostic centres, which provide appointments such as CT, MRI and ultrasound scans and endoscopies. These centres will run 12 hours a day, seven days a week. The hope is to deliver up to half a million extra appointments a year.
- Bone density scanning will be boosted through up to 13 new scanners, providing an estimated 29,000 extra scans.
- GPs will be able to refer patients directly to these centres without requiring a prior consultation with a hospital consultant.
- Creating 17 new and expanded surgical hubs, as championed by the Royal College of Surgeons. These hubs deliver surgery more quickly in areas such as cataract surgery and orthopaedic operations. These hubs are often separated from other hospital theatres, which means operations in the hubs are not cancelled to make way for emergency surgery.
- The creation of “super clinics,” where a wider range of clinicians working at the “top of their licence” are responsible for seeing patients while being overseen by an “accountable consultant”.
- Expansion of remote monitoring for all long-term conditions where clinically appropriate, helping to “remove up to 500,000 follow-up appointments per year from 2026/27 onwards”.
The plan further reiterates the Government pledge to meet the 18-week treatment target by March 2029.
It added: “By March 2026 the percentage of patients waiting less than 18 weeks for elective treatment will be 65% nationally.
“Every trust will need to deliver a minimum five percentage point improvement by March 2026.”
The plan also promises an improvement in hitting key cancer targets.
During his speech, the Prime Minister said the NHS must be “hungry for innovation” but reiterated his belief that the health service cannot become a “national money pit”.
Elsewhere, lead campaigner of We Own It – which campaigns against privatisation and for public ownership – Johnbosco Nwogbo – said: “Using the private sector to cut waiting lists was the centrepiece of the Conservative government’s Elective Recovery Plan in February 2022, but waiting lists kept going up.
“Starmer’s ‘new’ initiative looks suspiciously similar to the Conservatives’ failed plan.
“Hospitals are crumbling while the NHS is haemorrhaging at least £10 million a week to private shareholder profits – money which could build a new operating theatre every week.
“Whether it was Tony Blair with his disastrous PFI deals or David Cameron flinging open the door to privatisation with the Health and Social Care Act, we have seen successive governments tread this well-worn policy path with dire consequence.”
The move was also met with scepticism from Sharon Graham, the general secretary of the Unite union.
She said that new investment “will need to be carefully monitored” and that “all too often we have seen extra spending disappear into the pockets of the private sector”.
Unison’s head of health Helga Pile added: “Staff are the bedrock of the NHS and key to turning around its fortunes.
“Ministers know that all the extra appointments and other ways of increasing capacity won’t happen on their own.
“Health workers have been taken for granted for years by governments and little they’ve heard from the prime minister on his plans will encourage them to feel differently.
“Without proper investment in staff, there can be no world-class NHS, no improvements in patient care, reduction in the backlog or increased efficiency of services.”
