The privitisation of NHS services is leading to increased rates of deaths from treatable causes and an overall decline in the quality of healthcare, researchers have said.

Academics said that avoidable deaths increased as more private services were used.

They estimated that 557 additional deaths between 2014 and 2020 might be attributed to changes in outsourcing.

The study, published in The Lancet Public Health journal, examined the impact of the Health and Social Care Act 2012 in England, which “intensified pressures on the NHS to outsource service provision from state-owned providers to private for-profit providers”.

Researchers from the University of Oxford examined how much each regional health body spent on outsourcing between 2013 and 2020.

The Northern Echo: Over £11bn was spent on outsourcing health services to the private sector in the year that was studied (PA)Over £11bn was spent on outsourcing health services to the private sector in the year that was studied (PA) (Image: PA)

They also looked at levels of “treatable mortality” – or deaths that could have been avoided with timely and appropriate healthcare.

Spending on private companies increased from 4% of all money spent by local health bodies in 2013 to 6% in 2020.

But there were wide geographical differences across local clinical commissioning groups, with some spending up to 20% of their funding commissioning services from private companies.

In total, £11.5 billion was spent outsourcing health services to the private sector over the period studied.

Statistical analysis concluded that an annual increase in outsource spending of 1% was associated with a rise in treatable mortality of 0.38% – or 0.29 deaths per 100,000 people.

Researchers said their analysis suggests that 557 additional deaths between 2014 and 2020 might be attributed to changes in outsourcing.

“The privatisation of the NHS in England, through the outsourcing of services to for-profit companies, consistently increased in 2013–20,” they wrote.

“Private sector outsourcing corresponded with significantly increased rates of treatable mortality, potentially as a result of a decline in the quality of healthcare services.”

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: “As the authors make clear, this analysis is not able to identify a causal link between mortality rates and the outsourcing of health services.

“The NHS will always be free at the point of use and will never be for sale to the private sector, and there has been essentially no proportional increase in NHS spending with non-NHS providers over the last decade.”