Chris Ham, once Head of Strategy at the Department of Health, said Labour had introduced the ‘wrong sort of competition.'

Instead of forcing hospitals to compete with one another, the focus should be on creating an integrated network he claimed.

“Increasingly, older patients have multiple or complex conditions that require treatment by integrated teams of specialists, not treatment as a series of discrete, fragmented, problems,” said Mr Ham.

He said that current policy risked fragmenting the NHS, and failed to take into the numerous procedures needed my many seriously ill patients.

“If you look at the evidence from the US, the highest quality care is delivered by integrated organisations that bring together co mm issioning and provision,” added Mr Ham.

“Integrated organisations may then compete against each other for patients, but once the patient chooses they get integrated, not fragmented, care.”