Corbyn attacks Starmer on private sector's role in NHS

Jeremy Corbyn has accused Sir Keir Starmer of betraying” the health service by introducing a much greater role for the private sector, which he warns will hollow out the NHS.

- KATE DEVLIN

In one of his first major interventions on an issue outside of the crisis in the Middle East, the former Labour leader also accused Sir Keir of “abandoning” working-class voters with a series of broken pledges, in an article for The Independent.

But Labour hit back, with a spokesperson telling Mr Corbyn: “If your ideology forces NHS patients to wait longer for healthcare, there’s something wrong with your ideology.”

It comes after the Labour leader announced on Monday that private hospitals will provide up to a million extra appointments, scans and operations a year as the government scrambles to cut sky-high waiting lists.

The move is a significant expansion of the independent sector’s role in tackling long delays that have built up in part because of the Covid pandemic.

Under the plans, unveiled by the prime minister in a major speech, private operators will receive an extra £2.5bn a year, as ministers try to hit a target that no patients will have to wait longer than 18 weeks by 2029.