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Income from private patients using the NHS is up 28 per cent in five years.

Now Health Secretary Matt Hancock is being told to stop the creeping privatisation of our prized health service.

Shadow Health Secretary Jonathan Ashworth said: “When millions are waiting longer in pain for operations & treatments, NHS patients should be the priority, not those with the cash to jump

the queue.

"The Tories need to start giving doctors and nurses the

investment to bring waits down. Personal wealth should never determine health.”

Labour analysis of the latest Department of Health annual report shows NHS income from patients who pay rose nearly £136million, from £478.6million in 2013 to £614.3million this year.

Before 2012 hospitals could only make two per cent of their income from private sources but legislation raised that cap to 49 per cent.

(Image: Getty)

Since then income from private patients has risen at an average of 5.1 per cent a year.

NHS Digital says the number of patients an overstretched NHS sends for private treatment is up 600 per cent in a decade.

(Image: Getty)

Last year the NHS paid an estimated £1billion for 585,000 private ops because it lacked staff or resources. In 2008 it was 100,000.

Union Unison called it “a terrible use of stretched resources.”

A Department of Health spokeswoman said: “We’re fully committed to a world-class NHS that is free at the point of use.”