A drive to get patients to exercise their right to choose any accredited hospital, public or private, for their routine treatment was launched yesterday by ministers - just as some of Britain's biggest private hospital groups said their appetite for work in the National Health Service had diminished sharply.

Richard Jones, commercial director of Spire, formerly Bupa Hospitals and Britain's second largest private hospital group, said NHS work "is no longer core to our strategy". The company had invested heavily in adapting its business model to take on NHS patients.