The figures are in. The plan to make the NHS a shell vehicle for private healthcare is well on its way.

A new report has revealed the extent of the private healthcare boom both inside and outside the NHS. Systematic underfunding from the Conservatives and now Labour Party government has ballooned waiting times to manufacture the argument for private provision within the NHS, with the health service increasingly becoming a shell for private profit. Meanwhile, the waiting lists also mean people are turning to private insurance – another move away from socialised medicine, the crown jewel of a civilised society.

NHS: private healthcare grows

The value of the UK’s private healthcare market rose to a record £12.4bn in 2023, according to the report from LaingBuisson. That’s up by £1bn from 2022. This all represents resources and expertise taken away from the NHS.

The NHS also paid for £3.5bn of such private healthcare procedures because the government has withheld funding and investment in public healthcare. Commitments from Labour in its manifesto fall £20bn short of the NHS’ Long Term Workforce Plan.

Of the 1.3m procedures private healthcare carried out, the NHS funded just under 445,000. The profit from such private provision removes funds from the NHS budget. Analysis from We Own It found the NHS loses £10m a week to shareholders or £6.7bn since 2012.

And the increased privatisation of the NHS has continued unabated. Labour has already overseen a £1.3bn sale of community health services for an entire integrated care system throughout Bath and North East Somerset, Wiltshire and Swindon to private provider HCRG Care Group, formerly Virgin Care. The contract lasts nine years.

Tim Read, co-author of the LaingBuisson report, said:

Increasingly we are seeing people willing to find alternatives rather than waiting to be seen on the NHS. Independent hospitals are seeing a continued boom in people claiming against health insurance entitlements, whilst independent clinics offering… cataract surgery or a diagnostic scan… are becoming an increasingly common sight on high streets across England, not just in more affluent areas traditionally associated with private healthcare.

Lagging behind our counterparts

Labour’s lack of funding, also inherited from the Conservatives, has key material impacts. The UK has a very low number of hospital beds, at 2.43 per 1,000 people. Meanwhile, France has over double with 5.73. And Germany (albeit with a higher GDP per person) has 7.82.

The UK is also low on doctors per 1,000 people, at 3.21. Some of the highest are in Austria at 5.45 and Norway at 5.18.

When it comes to capital investment, the UK further lags behind European countries. If the UK spent the same as the average investment of 14 EU countries in technology and buildings, we’d have spent £33bn more between 2010 and 2019.

These material factors are why waiting lists are so long, at 7.64m cases in August. And, in turn, that’s why the neoliberals of both parties have an argument for private healthcare provision.

The Labour government has launched a consultation on the future of the NHS. You can make your voice heard here.

But as Canary columnist Dr Julia Grace Patterson has pointed out, we need to ensure the people contributing are really heard in a transparent process, rather than the consultation being reduced to a box ticking exercise, providing a veneer of accountability.

Featured image via Good Morning Britain – YouTube