Gregory's Server
@ChrisMayLA6 The same approach worked rather well during the Blair/Brown years.
Using private entities in the short term to clear the backlog was however accompanied by significant NHS investment to in the longer term to remove the reliance on private support. Streeting wants that outcome but hasn't committed to the spending to get there yet — which is a legit area of concern — but I've not seen anyone serious argue that using private capacity to reduce the backlog won't work.
@rhys @ChrisMayLA6 Except that the private "capacity" is largely staffed by NHS consultants. Question is whether there's a way to get them to do the same work directly in the NHS rather than with an overhead cost for a private healthcare firm that's been bought in to do NHS work with NHS doctors, adding virtually nothing. The consultants do it for better rates, obviously, so... follow the money