A landmark deal to allow the NHS to take over a private hospital has turned into a shambles, the shadow health secretary has said.

In December ministers announced plans to use the BUPA hospital in Surrey as an NHS express surgery centre.

Since then "nothing has actually happened at all", Dr Fox said on Tuesday.

He accused ministers of "dishonesty" over the way they had raised expectations of improved patient care.

Fox said the government had no understanding of how to negotiate with the private sector.

"They said it was a done and dusted deal. They said that they were at the final stages - we would soon be having patients treated," he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

"Now we find that nothing has actually happened at all. I think it is indicative of the way that the government is very good at using the language that it has to use to get itself out of trouble."

However BUPA said NHS patients were already being treated and added that the negotiations were on track.

Fox also pointed to divisions between the chancellor and the health secretary on government plans to reform the health service.

"As is well known, the chancellor has put every obstacle in the way of some of the changes that the secretary of state wants to bring forward," he said.

"It is because the chancellor believes that the NHS simply needs more money and the secretary of state believes it has to have reform as well as money. They can't both be right."

He added that the government would have to take action that some in the Labour Party regarded as "unacceptable".

"This is a real test of whether the government are serious or whether they are going to simply stick to their own political ideology and end up wasting tax payers money with patients benefiting absolutely nothing at all."