North Norfolk Labour Party protesting against the NHS bill in March 2012.

NHS campaigners have called for the privatisation of North Norfolk’s NHS services to be halted. The call comes after it was revealed the North Norfolk Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) has budgeted for nearly £7m in private contracts over the next financial year.

The Labour Party in North Norfolk – who obtained the information through a Freedom of Information request – has said that voters need a proper debate about the future of the NHS and that the British public have never given their consent for the outsourcing.

National statistics from the Labour Party shows that NHS spending on private and other providers has gone through the £10bn barrier for the first time.

The total figure budgeted for private companies in North Norfolk stands at £6.8m with the CCG adding some contracts do not have a fixed contract value and are completed on the basis of work completed.

Denise Burke, Labour’s Parliamentary Candidate for North Norfolk, said:

“The public have never given a mandate for the government to carve up the NHS and for CCGs to privatisation our health service in this way. They even pledged no top down re-organisation of the NHS.

Since then for 2014 alone almost £7m has been earmarked in North Norfolk to go to private providers, and the CCG admits for some contracts there may be no limit to the spending.

We want to see this outsourcing halted until after the General Election next May so the British public can have their say, and so the right values of the NHS can be returned to its heart.”