NHS consultants run private firms charging to cut waiting lists at their own hospitals

Clinical hospital staff at work. ‘Insourcing’ deals are increasing NHS reliance on the private sector to cut waiting lists. Photograph: Neil Hall/AFP/Getty Images

Some of the country’s most senior NHS clinicians are earning a lucrative sideline running private firms that offer to cut waiting lists at their own hospitals, the Observer can reveal.

Top consultants in Manchester, Sheffield and London are among directors of “insourcing” agencies that charge the health service to treat patients at weekends and evenings and have won millions of pounds of work.