November 24: PM must sack Jeremy Hunt over his latest NHS fiasco

YOU are right, in your Editorial, to warn the Secretary of State for Health that his job is on the line (“Jeremy Hunt on borrowed time”, The Yorkshire Post, November 21).

We should remember that Jeremy Hunt was drafted into the job after Andrew Lansley’s disastrous NHS reorganisation and following his own terrible performance over the BSkyB contract where, as the supposedly impartial arbitrator, he was found to have been in near constant contact with Rupert Murdoch’s henchmen and lobbying on their behalf.

In the space of one week, as you report, Mr Hunt has secured a 98 per cent vote for strike action by junior hospital doctors; an open letter of protest from 77 East Riding GPs; desperate overseas nurse recruitment by local health trusts and the news that more and more trusts are overspending their budgets. Little wonder that Mr Hunt ended the week by failing to attend Friday’s emergency Commons debate on the NHS.

Some commentators suggest that the growing NHS crisis is part of a deliberate Government plan to end public health care.

Unless the Prime Minister moves fast to remove Jeremy Hunt and agree to arbitration for junior doctors, those suspicions will grow.