UK's NHS to Expand Use of Private Sector

Facts

• In an effort to clear record National Health Service (NHS) backlogs, UK PM Rishi Sunak is planning the largest expansion of private healthcare sector involvement since the Blair era. To start, private firms will be asked to operate eight community diagnostic centers (CDCs) and carry out over 400K scans, tests, and checks per year.¹
• As ministers hope relaxing the rules for issuing contracts will give more flexibility to local health leaders, the private sector, which already handles hundreds of thousands of treatments and appointments per year, says it can provide an additional 30% support more than it currently does.²
• The latest figures show 7.47M people – which is more than one in eight – are on waiting lists, the highest number since records began in 2007.¹
• Though the government expects the move to bring down wait times, health minister Maria Caulfield has said that "the total number is likely to rise a little bit more before they start to come down."³
• The government has pledged to open 160 CDCs by 2030, with 114 having already conducted 4.6M tests since 2021. The sector will also be used for its data to help identify where they could take on more NHS patients, as well as train junior NHS staff.⁴
• With physicians already asked to ensure patients get five providers to choose from, by October, anyone who has waited more than nine months without obtaining an appointment will be told they can switch to a provider with a shorter wait time.¹

Sources: ¹The Telegraph, ²BBC News, ³Guardian, and ⁴Daily Mail.

Narratives

• Narrative A, as provided by Guardian. The government's failure to expand the public health sector long predates COVID, and its expansion of private involvement hasn't quelled the crisis. Despite public opinion showing a strong preference toward the NHS and opposition to the unaffordable private health industry in the US, both Labor and the Tories have only paid lip service to their constituents while moving steadily toward a private sector takeover.
• Narrative B, as provided by Sky News. The problem with a completely public health sector is that doesn't motivate innovation. Both liberals and conservatives should agree that the NHS, while maintaining its core principles, should allow the growth aspect of the private sector to assist in strengthening the institution as it plummets in quality and capacity. Privatize shouldn't be a dirty word — it's what's needed to dig the UK out of this hole.