It’s already happened
James Meek: The NHS Goes Private, 22 September 2011
“... loosened the screws. The first attempt to introduce market competition into the NHS was made by Kenneth Clarke in 1990, in the dying months of Thatcher’s rule. The ‘internal market’ was rushed in, ignoring the views of the medical profession. It didn’t work. Tony Blair’s first health minister, Frank Dobson, read its funeral rites when Labour came ... ”