TORY Health Minister Jane Ellison has admitted in a secret recording that the government “pretty much gave away control of the NHS” to private capital.

In comments recorded at a private meeting of the Tory Reform Group, Ms Ellison said that ministers had been “on a high wire without a net” since the Health and Social Care Act was enacted by former health secretary Andrew Lansley.

And she shamelessly praised Mr Lansley’s successor Jeremy Hunt for doing a “brilliant job” and “turning the narrative around.”

At the June 8 meeting Ms Ellison called the coup “quite exciting.”

But Labour shadow health minister Jamie Reed said that patients in full-to-bursting A&E departments would not.

“Andrew Lansley’s NHS shake-up was a £3 billion fiasco that nobody wanted and nobody voted for,” he told the Observer.

“Now ministers are simply washing their hands of responsibility for our NHS.”

Labour has promised to repeal the Act if it gains power.