Andy Burnham MP, Labour’s Shadow Health Secretary, responding to reports that 70% of NHS contracts have been awarded to private companies, said:

“While the NHS struggles to cope with a growing A&E crisis, Ministers are giving private health companies a green light to cherry-pick its successful services. These figures confirm what Labour has been saying for months: David Cameron has forced every part of the NHS to open up to the market and now privatisation is proceeding at an alarming pace and scale.

"While the future demands greater integration of care, Cameron has set the NHS on the opposite path - a fast-track to fragmentation and privatisation.

"That’s why the choice at the 2015 is now stark: a public, integrated NHS under Labour - or a privatised market service under the Tories. Today’s figures are the clearest proof yet that five more years of Cameron would mean the break-up of the NHS.”