The PM’s private healthcare doesn’t matter reforms do

The prime minister’s registration with a private GP has been reported by The Guardian.

- JOHN RENTOUL

This is XS both a startling breach of medical confidentiality, and also journalism for which there is a public interest defence.

Voters are entitled to know what arrangements politicians make for their and their family’s healthcare at least in the case of the prime minister and the health secretary, who are responsible for the NHS.

However, there is a difference between being entitled to know and thinking that Sunak’s use of private healthcare has any effect on government policy. There will be some people who regard going private as a moral failing: Keir Starmer, for example, seemed to regard his mother’s refusal to do so as something to be proud of.

But most people would see it in the way Margaret Thatcher saw it in the 1987 election campaign: if they can get a better service privately and can afford it, they would.

That does not mean that Sunak is unable to understand the challenges facing the NHS. He does use the NHS when he was asked in the Commons whether he used private healthcare, he praised the NHS hospital in Northallerton, in his Yorkshire constituency, who have provided excellent care to my family over the years”.

Indeed, Hannah Fearn has written for The Independent recently about the increase in the number of people self-paying for private treatment precisely because of long waits for NHS care.