Jonathan Ashworth MP, Labour’s Shadow Health and Social Care Secretary, responding to the news that University Hospitals Plymouth Trust will move its entire elective orthopaedic service to a private company’s facility, said:

“This is an unprecedented move that looks like a front door privatisation.

“Imposing upon the NHS the biggest financial squeeze in its history has meant ballooning waiting lists, with patients waiting longer and longer in pain and distress for orthopaedic procedures.

“The fact this hospital feels it has no option but to turn to private sector providers to try to bring waiting lists down and to free up space for winter blows apart Tory claims that austerity has ended. The truth is the NHS remains severely underfunded and on the brink of a miserable winter for patients yet again.”