Changes to the NHS in England are providing private companies with business opportunities worth £20bn (€25bn; $33bn), a report to potential investors in the healthcare sector has said.

The report by Catalyst Corporate Finance, which advises companies on investments, says that there is a “significant opportunity for the private sector in primary and secondary care.”1

The report points to recent contracts awarded to Circle and Virgin Care to run NHS services as evidence that the government needs the private sector to reduce the cost of healthcare.

In February Circle became the first private firm to run an NHS hospital when it was awarded the contract to the run Hinchingbrooke Hospital in Cambridgeshire.2 In April Virgin Care took over the running of NHS community health services in two parts of Surrey in a £500m deal agreed with the local primary care trust.3 …