Keir Starmer has launched the Labour government’s new 10-year health plan, which he claims will “revolutionise” the NHS in England. He says it will bring care closer to home, digitise access, and focus on prevention over crisis.
But buried within the 168-page document is a major expansion of private sector involvement in core NHS services, infrastructure, and technology — all funded with public money, with little oversight and no clear funding breakdown.
The grand promise: care on your doorstep, AI in your pocket
Starmer and Health Secretary Wes Streeting have framed the plan as nothing less than a rebirth of the NHS.
It rests on three pillars:
Shifting care from hospitals to communities,
Modernising with cutting-edge technology,
And focusing on prevention to reduce long-term demand.
A new Neighbourhood Health Service — the flagship reform — promises 200 health centres across England by 2030, offering everything from GP appointments and mental health support to debt advice and help to stop smoking.
These centres will be open 12 hours a day, six days a week, aiming to make care more convenient and local.
Alongside this sits an ambitious digital overhaul: AI “scribes” will automate GP admin, the NHS App will become a front door to the health system, and genomics (using a person’s DNA to help predict, diagnose, or even prevent disease) and wearables will help track and predict disease before symptoms even emerge.
On paper, it reads like a tech-forward, patient-friendly reboot.
But behind the rhetoric lies a radically different NHS — one with the private sector built into the foundations.
Six books are gone – 44 to go!
Just click on the image, make your donation
and provide your details!
Behind the curtain: private providers embedded at every level
The most critical — and under-reported — aspect of Labour’s plan is its quiet but deliberate opening up of NHS services to private contractors. The document explicitly states:
“We will continue to make use of private sector capacity to treat NHS patients… and will enter discussions with private providers to expand NHS provision in the most disadvantaged areas.” (Fit for the Future, p.12)
This is not an emergency stopgap.
It is a policy shift — embedding private health firms as long-term partners, particularly where public services are thin.
In practice, this means that more NHS treatments, scans, rehab, diagnostics and dental work will be delivered by private companies, subsidised by the taxpayer.
And it doesn’t stop there.
Buy Cruel Britannia in print here. Buy the Cruel Britannia ebook here. Or just click on the image!
The return of PFI — rebranded and repackaged
One of the most alarming aspects of the plan is the proposed return of Private Finance Initiatives (PFIs) — the discredited New Labour policy that saw hospitals built with private capital and then leased back to the NHS at extortionate rates.
Labour now proposes to revisit that model under a new name:
“We will develop a business case for the use of Public Private Partnership (PPP) for Neighbourhood Health Centres, ahead of a final decision at the autumn budget.” (p.15)
This raises the spectre of PFI 2.0: hundreds of new centres built by private investors, who will then extract decades of profit from long-term NHS lease or service contracts.
We’ve been here before. These partnerships turn into millstones. The taxpayer pays three times over while private equity walks away fat and happy.
No details are offered about interest rates, risk-sharing, profit caps, or exit strategies.
Get my free guide: “10 Political Lies You Were Sold This Decade” — just subscribe to our email list here:
👉 https://voxpoliticalonline.com
Selling off the digital NHS?
The plan envisions a highly digitised NHS: patients will use the NHS App to access personalised care, AI tools will help doctors diagnose and document, and genomic data will guide early intervention.
But almost all of this infrastructure will be developed by private tech firms — with the plan stating:
“We will expand the role life sciences and technology companies can play in service delivery.” (p.14)
This means critical platforms — the new digital backbone of the NHS — could be owned, operated and controlled by private corporations, not the health service itself.
There is no discussion of intellectual property rights, data sovereignty, or who profits from the use of patient information.
You can’t call it a public health service if the software is owned by Silicon Valley. If the data, code and IP aren’t public, the system isn’t either.
The document vaguely references “open standards” but offers no commitments on in-house development, open-source licensing, or limits on vendor lock-in.
Despite repeated references to a £29 billion funding uplift, the plan provides no detailed breakdown of how that money will be spent — or how much will go to private providers, tech companies, or infrastructure partnerships.
There is also no new legislation, regulation, or transparency framework proposed to govern:
Private partnerships in service delivery
Ownership of new digital systems
Profit margins or return on investment for private health firms
Procurement transparency for the new neighbourhood centres
This is not oversight — it is design.
Six books are gone – 44 to go!
Just click on the image, make your donation
and provide your details!
A Trojan Horse for the corporate carve-up of the NHS
Labour’s 10-Year Health Plan presents itself as pragmatic, modern, and people-centred.
But behind its polished language and tech jargon lies an unmistakable agenda: the quiet outsourcing of core NHS functions to the private sector, with no limits and no guarantees that the public will retain control, ownership, or long-term value.
Starmer may not be selling off the NHS in the way past Conservative governments tried — but he’s laying out the red carpet for private capital to own its future.
Unless the public demands transparency, accountability, and clear red lines, Labour’s reform plan may not be remembered as a rescue — but as the start of the NHS’s final sell-off.
Share this post:
Vox Political needs your help! If you want to support this site
(but don’t want to give your money to advertisers) you can make a one-off donation here:
Be among the first to know what’s going on! Here are the ways to manage it:
1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (bottom right of the home page). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.
5) Follow Vox Political writer Mike Sivier on BlueSky
6) Join the MeWe page at https://mewe.com/p-front/voxpolitical
7) Feel free to comment!
And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!
If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!
Labour’s 10-year health plan: a new era of privatised profit-plundering?
Share this post:
Watch the video clip:
Keir Starmer has launched the Labour government’s new 10-year health plan, which he claims will “revolutionise” the NHS in England. He says it will bring care closer to home, digitise access, and focus on prevention over crisis.
But buried within the 168-page document is a major expansion of private sector involvement in core NHS services, infrastructure, and technology — all funded with public money, with little oversight and no clear funding breakdown.
The grand promise: care on your doorstep, AI in your pocket
Starmer and Health Secretary Wes Streeting have framed the plan as nothing less than a rebirth of the NHS.
It rests on three pillars:
A new Neighbourhood Health Service — the flagship reform — promises 200 health centres across England by 2030, offering everything from GP appointments and mental health support to debt advice and help to stop smoking.
These centres will be open 12 hours a day, six days a week, aiming to make care more convenient and local.
Alongside this sits an ambitious digital overhaul: AI “scribes” will automate GP admin, the NHS App will become a front door to the health system, and genomics (using a person’s DNA to help predict, diagnose, or even prevent disease) and wearables will help track and predict disease before symptoms even emerge.
On paper, it reads like a tech-forward, patient-friendly reboot.
But behind the rhetoric lies a radically different NHS — one with the private sector built into the foundations.
Six books are gone – 44 to go!
Just click on the image, make your donation
and provide your details!
Behind the curtain: private providers embedded at every level
The most critical — and under-reported — aspect of Labour’s plan is its quiet but deliberate opening up of NHS services to private contractors. The document explicitly states:
This is not an emergency stopgap.
It is a policy shift — embedding private health firms as long-term partners, particularly where public services are thin.
In practice, this means that more NHS treatments, scans, rehab, diagnostics and dental work will be delivered by private companies, subsidised by the taxpayer.
And it doesn’t stop there.
Buy Cruel Britannia in print here. Buy the Cruel Britannia ebook here. Or just click on the image!
The return of PFI — rebranded and repackaged
One of the most alarming aspects of the plan is the proposed return of Private Finance Initiatives (PFIs) — the discredited New Labour policy that saw hospitals built with private capital and then leased back to the NHS at extortionate rates.
Labour now proposes to revisit that model under a new name:
This raises the spectre of PFI 2.0: hundreds of new centres built by private investors, who will then extract decades of profit from long-term NHS lease or service contracts.
We’ve been here before. These partnerships turn into millstones. The taxpayer pays three times over while private equity walks away fat and happy.
No details are offered about interest rates, risk-sharing, profit caps, or exit strategies.
Get my free guide: “10 Political Lies You Were Sold This Decade” — just subscribe to our email list here:
👉 https://voxpoliticalonline.com
Selling off the digital NHS?
The plan envisions a highly digitised NHS: patients will use the NHS App to access personalised care, AI tools will help doctors diagnose and document, and genomic data will guide early intervention.
But almost all of this infrastructure will be developed by private tech firms — with the plan stating:
This means critical platforms — the new digital backbone of the NHS — could be owned, operated and controlled by private corporations, not the health service itself.
There is no discussion of intellectual property rights, data sovereignty, or who profits from the use of patient information.
You can’t call it a public health service if the software is owned by Silicon Valley. If the data, code and IP aren’t public, the system isn’t either.
The document vaguely references “open standards” but offers no commitments on in-house development, open-source licensing, or limits on vendor lock-in.
Missing numbers, missing ownership, missing accountability
Despite repeated references to a £29 billion funding uplift, the plan provides no detailed breakdown of how that money will be spent — or how much will go to private providers, tech companies, or infrastructure partnerships.
There is also no new legislation, regulation, or transparency framework proposed to govern:
Private partnerships in service delivery
Ownership of new digital systems
Profit margins or return on investment for private health firms
Procurement transparency for the new neighbourhood centres
This is not oversight — it is design.
Six books are gone – 44 to go!
Just click on the image, make your donation
and provide your details!
A Trojan Horse for the corporate carve-up of the NHS
Labour’s 10-Year Health Plan presents itself as pragmatic, modern, and people-centred.
But behind its polished language and tech jargon lies an unmistakable agenda: the quiet outsourcing of core NHS functions to the private sector, with no limits and no guarantees that the public will retain control, ownership, or long-term value.
Starmer may not be selling off the NHS in the way past Conservative governments tried — but he’s laying out the red carpet for private capital to own its future.
Unless the public demands transparency, accountability, and clear red lines, Labour’s reform plan may not be remembered as a rescue — but as the start of the NHS’s final sell-off.
Share this post:
Vox Political needs your help!
If you want to support this site
(but don’t want to give your money to advertisers)
you can make a one-off donation here:
Be among the first to know what’s going on! Here are the ways to manage it:
1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (bottom right of the home page). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.
2) Follow VP on Twitter @VoxPolitical
3) Like the Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/VoxPolitical/
Join the Vox Political Facebook page.
4) You could even make Vox Political your homepage at http://voxpoliticalonline.com
5) Follow Vox Political writer Mike Sivier on BlueSky
6) Join the MeWe page at https://mewe.com/p-front/voxpolitical
7) Feel free to comment!
And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!
If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!
Buy Vox Political books so we can continue
fighting for the facts.
Cruel Britannia is available
in either print or eBook format here:
The Livingstone Presumption is available
in either print or eBook format here:
Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:
The first collection, Strong Words and Hard Times,
is still available in either print or eBook format here:
you might also like
The ugly face of New Labour rears up again: Chris Leslie and Nita Clarke
Did the Tories tell anyone at all they were privatising the Land Registry?
Latest privatisation/corruption plan is halted as government reluctantly scraps Land Registry sale