Two leading academics on Friday claimed the government’s fast-track private surgery centres for NHS patients would “contribute to NHS deficits, NHS service closure and staff redundancies”.

Allyson Pollock and Sylvia Godden of Edinburgh university’s centre for public health policy said: “There is no good evidence that independent sector treatment centres [ISTCs] have provided additional capacity, value for money or high-quality care,” while they are leading to “fragmentation and financial instability” in the NHS.