Britain’s largest trade union is calling for an investigation into what it claims are the “obscene” profits being made by private companies from the NHS.

Unison said a “black hole” was opening up in the health service’s finances because of the millions of pounds being made by such companies.

A report published by the union described as a “damning expose” of damage being done by untested hospital reforms.

Dave Prentis, General Secretary, said: “The Government is allowing multinationals to bleed the NHS dry. . . wards and whole hospitals are threatened with closure, the jobs of nurses and health workers are disappearing.”

Mr Prentis said that £5 billion was going into private sector treatment centres that were at the root of the problems, adding: “We have the obscene situation of NHS scanners and equipment lying idle while trusts struggle to survive under the ‘payment by results system’, never knowing what their income will be.”

Ivan Lewis, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Care Services, said the report was inaccurate. He said: “Independent provision brings extra capacity and efficiency. More than 250,000 NHS patients to date have either been treated by or received a diagnostic service faster then they would have otherwise done thanks to the independent sector.

“It is also nonsense to suggest that the jobs of nurses and health workers are disappearing. The latest returns show that of the 903 compulsory redundancies, only 136 were clinical staff, and overall the number of staff employed by the NHS has expanded by 306,000 between September 1997 and September 2005.” (PA)

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