Britain is turning to the private sector in an attempt to cut NHS waiting lists.
The government plans to draft in corporate providers as it expands a rapid diagnosis programme.
Thirteen new diagnostic centres will open across England with the capacity to carry out an additional 742,000 scans, checks and tests per year, according to a statement released on Thursday.
The bulk of the clinics, eight in total, will be operated by the private sector, although services will be free to patients. The rest will be run by the NHS.
Health Secretary Steve Barclay said: “We must use every available resource to deliver life-saving checks to ease pressure on the NHS.
“By making use of the available capacity in the independent sector, and enabling patients to access this diagnostic capacity free at the point of need, we can offer patients a wider choice of venues to receive treatment and in doing so diagnose major illnesses quicker and start treatments sooner.”
Figures released last month revealed NHS waiting lists stood at 7.47 million at the end of May, the highest number since records began in 2007.
Health minister Maria Caulfield said the new centres could help to bring down the number of people waiting for treatment. But she said the situation may get worse before it gets better.
"We probably expect, in all honesty, for it to peak in the next few months," she told LBC's Nick Ferrari on Friday.
Private centres will operate similarly to their NHS counterparts, the Government said, but staff will be employed by private operators, which also own the buildings.
Sites in the South-West – located in Redruth, Bristol, Torbay, Yeovil and Weston-super-Mare – will be operated by diagnostics company InHealth.
Other private facilities will be located in Southend, Northampton and south Birmingham and join four already operating in Brighton, north Solihull, Oxford and Salford.
The new NHS-run sites are in Hornchurch, Skegness, Lincoln, Nottingham and Stoke-on-Trent.
The government pledged to open 160 CDCs by 2030. There are currently 114 operating, which have carried out 4.6 million tests, checks and scans since July 2021.
The NHS through the decades – in pictures
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The first babies born on July 5, 1948, the day the NHS was launched in the UK. Getty Images -
People take part in a doorstep survey about the need for a National Health Service in 1944. Getty Images -
The sorting of ballot papers in the British Medical Association to ascertain doctors' views on joining the National Health Service scheme, in April 1948. Getty Images -
Minister for health Aneurin Bevan watches a demonstration of a new stretcher in Preston, on the first day of the new National Health Service. Getty Images -
Mr Bevan's visit to Park Hospital, Manchester, now named Trafford General Hospital, on July 5, 1948. PA -
Nurses of Whipps Cross Hospital, in London, singing Christmas carols to one of the patients in bed in 1952. Getty Images -
NHS patients queuing in the rain outside a mobile X-ray unit parked in a street in New Cross, London in 1954. Getty Images -
Some of the 8,000 nurses attending a protest meeting at Trafalgar Square, London, in support of their pay claim in 1952. Getty Images -
A nurse in the operating theatre of St Bartholomew's Hospital, London, in 1968. Getty Images -
Nurses demonstrating outside the Ministry of Health, London, in 1974. Getty Images -
Demonstrators protesting in London against proposed NHS funding cuts in 1984. Getty Images -
A busy Friday night in the A&E section of the Royal London Hospital in 1998. Getty Images -
Unison members protest in front of the British Parliament to protest against conditions which will turn the NHS into a two-tier system in 2003. Getty Images -
Work during the construction of Birmingham's Queen Elizabeth Hospital, in 2007. Getty Images -
Performers dance in a scene in tribute of the NHS during the Opening Ceremony of the London 2012 Olympic Games. Getty Images -
NHS workers take part in an anti-austerity protest during the first day of the 2015 Conservative Party Autumn Conference in Manchester. Getty Images -
Doctors treat a baby, receiving light therapy, inside an incubator in the Birmingham Women's Hospital in 2015. Getty Images -
Nurses in uniforms from each decade of the NHS celebrate the 70th birthday of the NHS in 2018. Getty Images -
A nurse enters the Covid-19 Red Zone at Glan Clwyd Hospital in Wales in 2020. Getty Images -
NHS staff applaud at the entrance of the Royal Liverpool Hospital as part of the "Clap For Our Carers" campaign in April 2020. Getty Images -
A nurse takes a swab at a Covid-19 drive-through testing station for NHS staff in Chessington in 2020. Getty Images -
A sign of support for the NHS during the coronavirus lockdown in 2020 in Glasgow. Getty Images -
Domestic caretaker Jim Johnson outside Blackpool Victoria Hospital during the coronavirus pandemic in 2020. Getty Images -
NHS staff members gather outside the University Hospital of North Tees to show their respects and applaud Captain Sir Tom Moore. Getty Images -
NHS staff and key workers queue in the Louisa Jordan Hospital before receiving the coronavirus vaccine in 2021 in Glasgow, Scotland. Getty Images -
NHS staff administer the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine in 2021 in St Helens. Getty Images -
An ambulance paramedic speaks as NHS workers and supporters gather outside Downing Street during strike action in 2022. Getty Images -
Demonstrators, holding placards and banners, during a strike by NHS nursing staff outside St. Thomas' Hospital in London, in 2022. Getty Images -
Ambulance workers on a picket line during strike action at Chorley Ambulance Station in 2023. Bloomberg -
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is given a demonstration of CPR while visiting the NHS's Addenbrooke's Hospital in 2023. Getty Images
A number of other measures to use capacity in the private sector have been outlined by the Elective Recovery Taskforce, which was set up in December.
These include using data from private health providers to identify where they could take on more NHS patients to help clear backlogs. They will also look at using the private sector to train junior NHS staff.
Health minister and Elective Recovery Taskforce chair Will Quince added: “We have already made significant progress in bringing down waiting lists, with 18-month waits virtually eliminated.
“I chaired the Elective Recovery Taskforce to turbocharge these efforts and help patients get the treatment they need.
“These actions will bolster capacity across the country and give patients more choice over where and when they are treated.”
However, Labour said the Government was not making enough use of private capacity.
The party claims 331,000 patients waiting for NHS care could have been treated since January 2022.
Shadow health secretary Wes Streeting, said: “The Conservatives are failing to make use of private sector capacity and patients are paying the price.
“No one should be waiting in pain while hospital beds that could be used lie empty. The next Labour government will use spare capacity in the private sector to get patients seen faster.”
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak vowed to bring waiting lists down earlier this year, but last month he said industrial action across the NHS was making the task “more challenging”.
Junior doctors are preparing for another four-day strike starting on August 11 in their continuing row with the Government over pay. Consultants are set to walk out for 48 hours on August 24.
