One of the reasons ministers appear to have decided that they need the Department for Health and Social Care to take over complete control of the NHS and eliminate NHS England is, according to the Health Service Journal, because:
“the [Labour] team see more and more voters paying to go private, and honestly believe the universal service could lose widespread public support.”
However much Labour ministers may have convinced themselves of this defeatist view, the figures published by the private sector do not support it.
Record rises?
The most recent data from the Private Healthcare Information Network (PHIN) shows only a fractional increase in the number of treatments in UK private hospitals in Quarter 1 of 2025-26, which PHIN trumpets as a “Near record quarter”. The “near record” turns out to indicate only 8,000 extra cases over 3 months, of which half were privately insured patients.
Full article on The Lowdown, 29 October 2025
