The decision to award the contract to Alliance Medical was made earlier this month by NHS England, the body set up by the coalition government to oversee the health service.

A special department of NHS England called the Strategic Projects Team was in charge of the procurement for this scanning contract. This team was founded in 2009 to handle the management of Hinchingbrooke hospital in Cambridgeshire, which then led to the first full privatisation of an NHS hospital. That privatisation deal failed earlier this month when the healthcare firm involved, Circle, announced it was abandoning the hospital after a damning report from quality inspectors.

The individual who led the Strategic Projects Team, Ernie Buckley, was named as the contact on procurement documents for the Stoke scanning contract. He was previously a project manager for privatisation specialist Serco.

Ian Syme, coordinator of North Staffordshire Healthwatch and a long-time critic of privatisation, uncovered the original NHS bid by, in his words, "digging through 150 pages of board papers". His research revealed that the bid from the private provider had beaten the NHS bid.

Syme told BuzzFeed News: "There's little or no openness or transparency in these tendering processes, no public debate, no meaningful public scrutiny. Ask for details and you get obstructed by the 'commercial confidentiality' excuse."

He added: "The evidence is stacking up that NHS England have a privatisation agenda and NHS England are at the moment privatising NHS by stealth."

Asked about the contract win, a spokesperson for Alliance Medical said "the process has been open and transparent from day one" and that the company is "delighted to be successful" in winning the contract. Alliance Medical also highlighted its existing work for the NHS in the North West.