A report released by corporate financial advisors Catalyst predicted that the private health care sector can expect to see £20 billion worth of business in the next few years.

The high level of potential business comes from government efforts to reduce public sector spending and the introduction of alternate health care models.

Catalyst used examples of recent health care contracts with Virgin Care and Serco to show the direction of government policy.

The Catalyst report detailed that: "The introduction of GP commissioning and interest in healthcare models offering alternatives to hospital care will require a higher proportion of services to be delivered by the private sector. The markets for these services are estimated to be worth around £20bn."