Is this the government paying privately owned companies to reduce waiting times where the government is in control of the finances and it's just to bring down the waiting times until the new hospitals required are built and the required increase in staff numbers needed to staff the new facilities are trained and hired?
If it's a temporary measure as I describe, what is the issue with that? There is a huge backlog of cases, would you prefer to keep the backlog? Keep people dying needlessly whislt they wait for diagnosis and treatment?
I have no idea if it is that as I haven't read the article but due to years of Tory mismanagement and the pandemic something needs to be done to relieve the backlog and get waiting times down, we live in extrordinary times.
If this isn't health insurance by stealth (which it doesn't sound like) or a permanent situation that leads to money leaking out of the NHS forever to private companies, then it must have some merit given the current circumstances surely? Or are people supposed to die for political principals?