The NHS is paying £2bn a year to private hospitals to care for mental health patients because it does not have enough of its own beds, the Guardian can reveal.
The independent sector receives about 13.5% of the £14.8bn the NHS in England spends on mental health, a dramatic rise since 2005 when it was paid £951m. Nine out of every 10 of the 10,123 mental health beds run by private operators are occupied by NHS patients.
