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Patients are sick of Britain’s first privately-run NHS hospital which fell 19 places from the top of a Government league table in five months.

Circle, which manages Hinchingbrooke Hospital, boasted in May it was top of a new patient care league but its performance has plummeted every single month since.

The hospital’s patient satisfaction rating has tumbled by 22%, and now it is 20th in its local area.

The alarming revelation raises fears privatisation harms NHS patient care.

Labour’s Shadow Health Secretary Andy Burnham said last night the Daily Mirror had proved “patients are paying the price for the Government’s eagerness to mix medicine with the money motive”.

The league table – set up by strategic health authority NHS Midlands and East – scores hospitals on how likely patients would be to recommend them to others.

More than 30,000 patients took part and in May results showed Hinchingbrooke, near Huntingdon, Cambs, scored joint highest.

Out of 46 hospital local trusts, it came top with a patient satisfaction score of 89.

Circle chief Ali Parsa said that proved Circle “should be allowed to do more”.

But the biggest health union Unison says staff morale is now falling at Hinchingbrooke.

Phil Green said: “Cleaners have already been cut at the hospital which means remaining staff are having to do more with less.

"There is concern about further cuts.”

Mr Burnham added: “It is not acceptable for patients to be treated like guinea pigs in a risky ideological experiment.”