Keir Starmer needs reminding that the NHS is not for sale

As the government unveils its plans for NHS patients to be treated privately in a bid to cut the waiting list backlog, former Labour MP Jeremy Corbyn says this administration is repeating the mistakes of the last

The Whittington Hospital in north London serves more than half a million people living in Islington and beyond. It provides a wonderful local service, run by incredibly hardworking staff who dedicate their lives to the care of others. It is our precious local hospital – and it is currently being sued by a collapsed private finance initiative (PFI) firm.

The hospital withheld payments over a dispute regarding unfulfilled maintenance work, and subsequently brought the services back in-house. Now, the PFI firm is trying to claw back a huge debt, and our local hospital may be forced to pay the price.

Many of us warned the last Labour government about the dangers of PFIs. Under such initiatives, private funding was used to pay the upfront costs of new hospital infrastructure, leaving NHS trusts to foot the bill. Last year, NHS trusts spent almost half a billion pounds on interest charges alone; that’s the equivalent of 15,000 newly qualified nurses.

Then came the Conservative Party, which spent 14 years indulging in an ideological experiment of its own: combining privatisation with austerity. This was no coincidence. By starving the NHS of resources, the government tested what Noam Chomsky has described as the “standard technique” of privatisation: “Defund, make sure things don’t work, people get angry, you hand it over to private capital.”

Today, the new Labour government is writing its own privatisation playbook.

During the general election, I stood on a platform that pledged to defend a fully public, fully funded healthcare system. We knew Labour’s decision to drop its previously held manifesto promise that “the NHS is not for sale” was no accident. We said the future of our NHS was on the line – and we were right.

This week, the government announced that private operators will receive an extra £2.5bn a year in government funding. Under their plans, the role of the private sector in providing outpatient appointments will rise by 20 per cent. Meanwhile, the secretary of state for health, Wes Streeting, refuses to rule out the involvement of the private sector in a reformed care service – a refusal he will no doubt maintain for the next four years until elderly and disabled people are finally allowed to hear his plans.

To the prime minister and health secretary, welcoming privatisation is proof of their commitment to pragmatism. “We will not let ideology… stand in the way.” To anyone who knows the reality of privatisation, their dogmatic refusal to look at the evidence is the very definition of ideology itself.

A privatised health service leads to worse quality care, higher mortality rates and a reduction in staffing. Privatisation has even been linked to higher rates of patient infections, in part because cleaning staff are typically the first to be cut in the name of efficiency. There is only one beneficiary of privatisation: investors and shareholders making money out of people’s ill health.

At least it saves us money, right? Wrong.

In many cases, privatisation results in greater costs, particularly in the administrative demands that arise from the proliferation of private contracts. Ultimately, every penny that is paid to a private company is a penny that could have gone to a public sector worker, a hospital bed or a life-saving treatment.

Privatisation does not save money for the NHS. It diverts money away from the NHS. This is the very same NHS that will end up delivering the expanded care. It is NHS staff – and NHS resources – that will provide the private sector’s “spare capacity”. This is what Dr Tony O’Sullivan, co-chair of Keep Our NHS Public means when he says that “feeding the parasite undermines the health of the NHS host”.

Privatisation rests on an illusion that their services are provided out of thin air, hiding the human and economic cost required to satisfy the private sector’s endless greed.

Above all, Labour’s plans betray the foundational purpose of the NHS: to provide healthcare for everyone irrespective of their status of wealth. The rationing of services creates a two-tiered system; those who can afford it can access the treatment they need, while the poorest are left to languish on rising waiting lists.

Private providers are routinely accused of cherry-picking their patients, serving those with less complex needs and leaving the NHS with patients who require more time and care. Expanding the market for the private sector hollows out what is meant to be a comprehensive service for all.

Meanwhile, the government wonders why they are overseeing an unprecedented rise in support for far-right parties and personalities. Whether it’s maintaining the two-child benefit cap, cutting winter fuel or selling off our NHS, this government is abandoning working-class people, one broken pledge at a time.

People in this country are disillusioned by a two-party system that thrives on despair. Politicians may regret spending their lives convincing their constituents that nothing will change. Instead, they should inspire some hope that a more equal world is possible.

Perhaps they could start by defending a British institution to be proud of: an NHS that is public, universal and free for all.

Jeremy Corbyn is the independent MP for Islington North