A “PFI 2.0” will divert money away from patients and into shareholders’ pockets, campaigners warned today as the government announced plans to use private finance to fund new neighbourhood health centres.

The government has pledged to open 250 centres as part of an effort to shift outpatient care away from hospitals.

Officials say they will serve as “one-stop shops,” bringing together GPs, nurses, dentists and pharmacists under one roof.

Announcing the plans, Health Minister Karin Smyth warned that government funding “will only get us so far,” citing a £40 billion black hole in the NHS’s finances.

“We need to use every measure available to us, which is why we’re leveraging in private investment to construct some of these centres, making the most of all expertise and every tool at our disposal,” she said.

But campaigners have warned that the use of public-private partnerships could repeat the mistakes of disastrous PFI (private finance initiative) schemes, in which private firms financed the construction of hospitals, leaving taxpayers lumbered with high-interest repayments over the long term.

Research by We Own It found that hospitals paid on average almost eight times the initial capital put into their trusts. In the case of Essex Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust, an initial investment of £40m has ballooned to £1.1bn in repayments.

Lead campaigner for the group, Sophie Conquest, said: “New private finance will harm patients by diverting money away from patient care and towards the pockets of shareholders.

“We’ve already seen the sickening cost of PFI in our NHS. In the last five years alone, NHS trusts have spent more than £1.8bn on PFI interest payments. This would have paid for the starting salaries of 50,044 new doctors.”

The government’s latest plans are “simply PFI 2.0,” she warned.

Dr John Puntis, co-chair of Keep Our NHS Public, said: “The collapse of Carillion (a company involved with 60 major PFI projects) cost the taxpayer £148m.

“Using private finance to make it appear that spending is off the balance sheet is considered a ‘fiscal illusion.’

“Embracing this ‘zombie policy’ demonstrates only the bankruptcy of government thinking and the power of corporate lobbying.”

Unison’s head of health, Helga Pile, said the plans “should be ditched without delay in favour of straightforward public investment.

“Mortgaging the future of the NHS didn’t work before and it won’t work now.”