Patients’ right to choose where they are treated is being threatened by radical plans to scrap competition in the NHS, ministers have been warned in leaked documents.

Plans to abolish the health service’s internal market are being resisted by Whitehall officials who have told Matt Hancock, the health secretary, that they would quietly reverse 30 years of policy, according to a Department of Health briefing seen by The Times.

Mr Hancock is understood to be ruling out any changes that would prevent patients selecting the NHS hospital or private provider where they are sent for treatment. But he has been told that if he blocks new laws the NHS could blame the government for the failure of a £20 billion reform plan that was