UK Health Secretary Wes Streeting has said he is "very sympathetic" to the idea of bringing private investors into the NHS.
The top Labour MP – who runs England’s healthcare system but not Scotland or Wales’s due to the devolved system – was responding to comments from NHS England chief executive Amanda Pritchard.
Last week, she had said the UK Government should consider the use of private capital to fix the NHS’s crumbling buildings and infrastructure.
She said: “We need to think much more radically, particularly about capital” – adding: “I think we now must consider private capital investment in the NHS.”
“We do think that there is a role for financial flows and incentives – that’s built into our reform plan as well.”
Asked whether he is prepared to go back to private finance initiative (PFI) schemes – in which private firms built hospitals and repayments were made over the long term – he said: “Well, the Chancellor has delivered the biggest capital allocation for the NHS since Labour was last in power, but I don’t pretend that there aren’t still enormous challenges because of the size of the capital shortfall…
“So I’m actually very sympathetic to the argument that we should try and leverage in private finance.
“The big caveat I would add, however, is that, while I’m enormously proud of the record of the last Labour government, which delivered the shortest waiting times and the highest patient satisfaction in history, many of those PFI deals did lumber the NHS with an enormous cost that it continues to bear.
“So I think we’ve got to tread cautiously and carefully in this area. I think there is a role for private investment, but the terms of those arrangements – that’s where you’ve got to tread really carefully.
“But I’m open to serious proposals from the NHS, or indeed anyone else.”
Before being elected, Streeting had pledged to “hold the door [to the NHS] wide open” for private investment.
Pressed on Monday on whether high-performing hospitals would get more money and poor performers less, or would even be forced to shut, he said: “I certainly want more patient choice, more patient power, more patient control over where they’re seen, how they’re treated, the nature of their appointments.
“There’s a huge mountain to climb to get to that kind of NHS, and that’s why it’s important that we’re getting the basics right.
“We’re fixing the fundamentals… There’s a hell of a lot more to do now. We’re determined to make sure that 2025 is the road to recovery.”
Earlier, Streeting said the Government has “hit the ground running on the NHS” but there is a “hell of a lot more to do”.
On Sunday evening, Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced that the UK Government had delivered two million extra NHS appointments – a key manifesto pledge – seven months ahead of target.
NHS England figures show that between July and November 2024 there were almost 2.2 million more appointments compared with the equivalent period in 2023.
The 2023 figures include dates when consultants and their more junior doctors were on strike, meaning fewer appointments were available for this comparison period.
Streeting told BBC Breakfast on Monday: “We’ve hit the ground running on the NHS.
“I do want to reassure your viewers, though, that, yes, we are reporting back today we’ve delivered on our first step and we’ve delivered it seven months early.
“But I don’t want anyone watching to think we’re doing victory laps.
“There are still massive challenges in the NHS, a hell of a lot further to go on waiting lists, people are still struggling to get GP appointments, and GPs are struggling, let me tell you, with the case load they’ve got.
“We’ve also got big challenges on things like ambulance response times and A&E trolley corridor care, which is an indictment of the state the NHS was left in.
“So, I know there are still challenges. We’re not doing victory laps – a lot done, a hell of a lot more to do.”
Some 62% of the extra two million appointments was made up of outpatient appointments, 26% diagnostic tests and 12% elective operations.
Starmer said: “This isn’t just about numbers. It’s about the cancer patients who for too long were left wondering when they’ll finally start getting their life-saving treatment.
“It’s about the millions of people who’ve put their lives and livelihoods on hold – waiting in pain and uncertainty as they wait for a diagnosis.
“We said we’d turn this around and that’s exactly what we’re doing – this milestone is a shot in the arm for our plan to get the NHS back on its feet and cut waiting times.
“But we’re not complacent and we know the job isn’t done.”
