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A Tory peer who suggested more than half of NHS beds could be cut attended a meeting about replacing the health service with a private insurance scheme.

Health Minister Lord Prior was invited by consultancy firm McKinsey to the event, a Mirror investigation has found.

The company then tried to block details of the conference in September 2013 from being made public.

But after a review by government watchdog the Care Quality ­Commission, the information can now be released.

Topics discussed included sessions on “building a national health insurer” and “private health insurance growth opportunities… the new frontier”.

McKinsey earns millions of pounds supplying services to the NHS and advising private healthcare clients.

The revelation will spark fury among over-stretched NHS staff who have bearing of savage Tory cuts.

Gail Cartmail, assistant general ­secretary of the Unite union , said: “It’s ­absolutely alarming that Lord Prior, who is now a Government Minister, attended a meeting about building a national health insurer and private health insurance opportunities… in other words how to dismantle the NHS and have a US-style health system.

"The Mirror’s revelations uncover the influence of private US healthcare on Tory thinking .”

Ms Cartmail warned the meeting, at Windsor, Berks, showed “the real danger of the NHS being part” of the controversial Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership.

In emails seen by the Mirror, Lord Prior thanked McKinsey for inviting him to the ­discussions.

He said: “I much enjoyed it. It does create the space to think and for ideas to settle.”

He admitted being at the meeting, which took place before he became a minister.

But he said: “My belief in an NHS free at the point of use has never changed and as this Government is in office, the NHS will remain that way.”

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Earlier this week, the Mirror revealed the peer suggested to McKinsey that half of NHS beds could be scrapped .

He made the bombshell disclosure to a senior executive during a £3,000 tour of US health facilities – paid for by the consultancy firm.

It came two months after the Windsor meeting.

McKinsey tried to block details of those ­discussions, claiming they were ­“commercially ­sensitive”.

The CQC initially agreed but after its review decided “there was a public interest in ­transparency about the topics discussed”.

Even then, some of the information released by McKinsey was redacted.

The CQC said this was because certain details “carry greater commercial value” to the firm.

McKinsey said: “We have nothing to add.”