Government is deliberately creating a health crisis to privatise the NHS, doctors claim

Doctors leaders have accused the Government of a conspiracy to create a crisis in hospitals in order to usher in the back-door privatisation of the NHS.

The British Medical Association passed a motion claiming ministers are using plans launched last year, ostensibly as a means to reform over-spending facilities, as a front for selling off the health service.

They fuelled the row by also accusing political leaders of “scapegoating” doctors as a means of “distracting the public from and under-funded service”.

But the Department of Health said the union’s claims “had no relationship with reality”, arguing that more public money is being spent on the NHS than at any point in history.

Dr Chaand Nagpaul, who takes over as BMA chairman this week, said: "As doctors we strive to provide safe, quality care to our patients. 

"Yet we appear set up to fail. We trail European nations, with significantly fewer doctors and hospital beds per head and spend £10 billion less per year on our health service.”

Following an overspend in the hospital sector of at least £2.45 billion in 2015-16, NHS England initiated a series of Sustainability and Transformation Plans, which divided the country into 44 areas and charged healthcare providers to come up with more efficient processes.

But yesterday these were branded "Slash, Trash and Privatise plans" by BMA members, who passed the motion overwhelmingly.

A Department of Health spokeswoman said: "This motion sadly has no relationship with reality – while of course there are pressures on the frontline, the Government is now spending more than any in history on the NHS, has left doctors themselves to decide on use of the private sector, and public satisfaction is now the highest it has been in all but three of the last 20 years."