Private NHS providers made £1.6bn profit in just two years

The government has been continuing the Tory, Lib Dem and New Labour agenda of increased NHS privatisation. And after nearly two years in power, private providers of NHS services have made £1.6bn in profit.

The research

The Centre for Health and the Public Interest analysed £12bn worth of contracts, which it emphasised are not all of the NHS’ private provision.

The corporations that received those contracts extracted profit that could have been used for 9,178 doctors or 19,428 nurses over the two year period. Another ten thousand doctors for the NHS would also go some way in addressing the striking resident doctors’ concerns.

The new research takes forward a previous study by We Own It, which found the private sector made an average of £10m a week in profit from 2012-2024.

The Centre for Health and the Public Interest also noted that 131 companies made more than 20% profit from the NHS. Between 8% and 9% are the usual profits for a company.

The study further found that the NHS spent around £2.5bn on companies registered outside the UK or in tax havens.

More and more healthcare privatisation

In January 2025, the prime minister announced he would increase private provision of helath services by 20%. After only his first year in power, NHS privatisation leapt by 10%. If that continues, there will be a 50% increase in privatised NHS services by the end of this parliament.

Some areas have seen much higher increases. In South East London, NHS private provision increased by 71% from July 2024 to July 2025. Other high increases were in Dorset at 51%, along with Cambridgeshire/ Peterborough and Suffolk/ NE Essex at 41% each.

Successive governments know that making people pay outright for NHS services is very unpopular. So they have been gradually turning healthcare into a vehicle for profit through enabling corporations to provide the services with an NHS badge on them. Instead of making people pay at the point of use, it’s through profit from the healthcare budget and public purse.

Featured image via the Canary