Private sector health companies are set for a huge boost with the government expected today to announce a step-change in their use to cut NHS waiting list times.
Firms will run health centres, patients will be sent to private hospitals and 13 new community diagnostic centres (CDCs) opened to carry out an additional 742,000 scans and tests annually.
Eight of these new CDCs will be run by private groups, the government said, with services provided to be free as with the NHS.
Companies have also been asked to assess what levels of spare capacity they currently have to take on more work.
Waiting times for treatment have soared since the start of the pandemic.
According to official numbers, there are more than 7.4 million people waiting for NHS treatment, the highest since records started to be taken in 2007.
Steve Barclay, Health Secretary, said: "By making use of the available capacity in the independent sector and enabling patients to access this diagnostic capacity free at the point of need, we can offer patients a wider choice of venues to receive treatment and in doing so diagnose major illnesses quicker and start treatments sooner."
Labour accused the government of not acting quickly enough, saying that using private sector capacity might have seen 331,000 people treated since 2022.
Shadow health secretary Wes Streeting said: "The Conservatives are failing to make use of private sector capacity and patients are paying the price.”
Tony Blair‘s Labour government funded a network of 30 private clinics for NHS patients between 2003 and 2010.
Diagnostics company InHealth will run new centres in Redruth, Bristol, Torbay, Yeovil and Weston-super-Mare while NHS-operated CDCs will be opened in Hornchurch, Skegness, Lincoln, Nottingham and Stoke-on-Trent.
The operator of sites planned for Southend, Northampton and south Birmingham has yet to be decided.