Embrace private healthcare to save the NHS, former Boots boss urges Labour

Telegraph

4 hours ago

The former boss of Boots has urged the Government to embrace private medical care to fix the NHS, as he backed plans to inject tens of billions of pounds into the struggling health service.
Sebastian James, the former Bullingdon Club member who endorsed Labour last year, said Rachel Reeves is right to propose a £30bn funding boost for the NHS as part of her upcoming spending review.
However, he urged ministers to use the cash to 'grasp the nettle of private provision', as he said that easing pressure on cash-strapped NHS hospitals was key to reducing waiting lists.
Mr James is already working with the NHS to help outsource cataract surgeries as the chief executive of European eye clinic chain Veonet, which runs the SpaMedica business in the UK.
But he said Wes Streeting, the Health Secretary, must go further and faster on working with the private sector after waiting lists recently rose for the first time in seven months.
The backlog now stands at 7.42m, according to data released for the end of March.
'We need radical change that can be achieved by releasing a measurable sum of money,' Mr James, the son of the hereditary peer the 5th Baron Northbourne, told The Telegraph.
'We need a more commercial approach. We have to grasp the nettle of private provision. We understand people's hesitation, but we want to see what's best for the patient.'
Borrowing for the greater good
The suggestion echoes ideas put forward by Richard Tice, Reform UK's deputy leader.
He has called for the NHS to buy millions more appointments from the independent sector to help address waiting lists, claiming it could help to clear the appointment backlog within two years.
This would go further than the Government's current pledge to offer up to a million extra appointments in private hospitals.
Yet such ideas are controversial as they will stoke fears of creeping privatisation of the NHS and raise concerns about potential profiteering.
Mr James said: 'There are questions about private companies making money. But it's all about how do you square that?
'There are two key things. One, it will still be free at the point of use. And two, the price will be cheaper than what is offered by the public healthcare system.'
Mr James has already held talks with Whitehall officials about his plans for the NHS and he said the Chancellor is right to unleash a significant one-off sum.
'You should borrow to pay for it,' said Mr James, suggesting that £20bn or £30bn would barely move the dial when it comes to the country's £2.8 trillion debt pile.
However, it comes at a time when the Chancellor is already facing a struggle to balance the books.
Ms Reeves will this week deliver her spending review, which is widely expected to unlock an extra £30bn for the NHS over a three-year period.
That will be at the expense of other public services, as she is also plotting real-terms cuts to day-to-day spending across many Whitehall departments.
Such pressures have emerged because of the Chancellor's fiscal rules, which prevent her from borrowing to fund day-day-day spending.
However, Mr James believes that borrowing to fix the waiting list crisis would do far greater good than harm.
He said that SpaMedica's role in providing eye services for the NHS should be a blueprint for ministers to work from, as the company claims to have helped cut waiting times for cataract surgery from 18 months to two weeks since Covid.
It now provides around 70pc of eye care referrals from the NHS, and last year helped to restore the sight of around 200,000 patients.
Profiteering claims
While it has helped to cut waiting times, SpaMedica is one of many private cataract clinics facing claims of profiteering after they allegedly inflated costs for procedures.
A leaked document from the Health Department, first reported by The Sunday Times, alleged that SpaMedica classed its patients as 'higher complexity', which led to procedures being more expensive than they needed to be.
Campaigners point to the fact that SpaMedica's profits rose from £63.9m to £71.8m in its last financial year, which they say is proof of the company taking the taxpayer for a ride.
SpaMedica has denied any wrongdoing.
However, such allegations reflect the fierce debate surrounding privatisation of the NHS, with many households uncomfortable with the prospect of independent providers making a profit while providing medical services, even if they are free for patients.
Mr James, who ran Boots from 2018 to 2024, is adamant that ministers must ignore such complaints if they are to have any hope of reducing waiting lists.
'We have cut waiting times down from 18 months to two to three weeks,' said Mr James. 'We have eaten away our waiting list.'
This is particularly key for Sir Keir Starmer, who has pledged that 92pc of NHS patients will get an appointment within 18 weeks by the end of the current parliament in 2029.
Ultimately, Mr James argues that private healthcare must be embraced because it is far more efficient than the NHS.
He said that SpaMedica clinics carry out more than 20 cataract surgeries a day, which is almost double that of NHS hospitals.
The fees are also cheaper, he said, as each cataract operation costs SpaMedica £980, compared to around £1,400 on the NHS.
'We've shown that we can do it in our industry, but we need to broaden it out,' he said. 'We could take it area by area, whether that be knee replacements or treating melanomas.
'By working with private healthcare providers, the solution is to save the NHS money.
'We understand people's hesitation, but we want to see what's best for the patient. We're not talking about eradicating the NHS, it's about a partnership.'