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Doctors condemn government's decision to lean on independent sector to meet waiting list and staffing targets
A general view of staff on a NHS hospital ward at Ealing Hospital in London
MOVES by Tory ministers to use the independent sector to tackle record NHS waiting lists and workforce shortages are setting a precedent for privatisation via the backdoor, doctors warned today.
And the Doctors’ Association UK said that the widely condemned strategy does little more than “apply a plaster to a gaping wound.”
The government approach — following more than a decade of Tory-imposed austerity and the significant impact of the Covid-19 pandemic — represents a “deflection from addressing the fundamental issues plaguing our health services,” the not-for-profit group said.
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