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.