Scotland’s cash-strapped National Health Service has pledged to pay private companies £850 million to carry out NHS work in a desperate bid to ease pressure on its struggling staff, this newspaper can reveal.

A Mail on Sunday investigation today lays bare the enormous scale of NHS privatisation under the SNP government, as the beleaguered health service increasingly attempts to outsource its core day-to-day functions.

Since January 2023, contracts worth hundreds of millions of pounds have been awarded to private firms – many of which are based in England, with some as far afield as Denmark and the Netherlands – to help with diagnostics, testing, X-ray assessments and treatments.

It means that, as the taxpayer-funded health service battles record waiting times and stretched resources, thousands of Scottish NHS patients and their records have been diverted to the private sector.

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