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The scale of privatisation of NHS services has been revealed in a new study which shows companies have eaten into the cost of care to the tune of £15 billion in the last five years.

Contracts awarded to private firms have almost doubled from £1.9 billion two years ago to £3.6 billion last year, in spite of Boris Johnson ’s denials that the NHS is up for grabs.

The latest figures show an 89 per cent leap in private companies’ stake in the service, with contracts worth more than £3.3 billion outsourced this year alone.

Commmissioned by the health workers union the GMB, the research has been carried out by Tussell, an independent firm of data analysts specialising in Government contracts.

According to Labour , it “flies in the face” of Government claims that by Boris Johnson and other ministers that “the NHS is not for sale - and it never will be”.

The shock figures follow the furious row over whether the NHS is “on the table” in negotiations over a post-Brexit trade deal with the United States.

American Big Pharma companies have been pressing for greater access to the UK market in medications, where they hope to be able to charge vastly increased prices of an estimated extra cost to the NHS of £500 million a week.

The new research, released last week, shows that most contracts since 2015 have been awarded to Care UK, with 17, and Virgin Care Services, with 13.

Virgin Care was widely criticised after it sued the NHS to secure an £82 million contract to provide children’s health services in Surrey.

The single most valuable contract was won by Sirona Health and Care, a “Community Interest” company, which was awarded a £1.09 billion contract to provide adult health services in areas of the South West for ten years.

GMB, which has been campaigning for the scrapping of the 2012 Health and Social Care Act, which opened up more NHS services to market competition, reports that the incidence of the MRSA infection in wards where cleaning services have been privatised has risen by 50 per cent.

Rahana Azam, GMB national secretary, said: “ These figures expose the extent to which our NHS is increasingly falling into private hands.

“Outsourcing is bad for patients and NHS staff.

“Time and again, we have seen private providers fail to deliver while our members’ terms and conditions are undermined.”Shadow Health Secretary Jonathan Ashworth said: “This is blatant profiteering and flies in the face of Boris Johnson’s claims that there would be no privatisation on his watch.

“This galloping privatisation is breaking up integrated care,costing the taxpayers and leaving a poor quality service for patients.”