Rishi Sunak is planning the biggest expansion of private sector involvement in the NHS since the Blair era in an effort to clear record backlogs.

On Friday, ministers will announce measures to “use every tool at our disposal” to cut waiting lists ahead of the next election.

Private sector firms will be asked to operate community diagnostic centres for NHS patients, starting with eight units carrying out more than 400,000 scans, checks and tests a year.

Across the country, such companies will be asked to identify all spare capacity, enabling the NHS to send patients facing long waits to private hospitals that can treat them more quickly.

Latest figures show 7.47 million – more than one in eight people – are on waiting lists, the highest figure since records began in 2007.