Jeremy Hunt has not visited his GP in years

Secretary of State for Health, Jeremy Hunt.

The Government minister riled junior doctors when he made changes to their contracts as part of his plans for a seven-day NHS earlier this year.

Despite a series of strikes and angry protests against the proposals, he said if he needed treatment from a junior doctor he knows he would be well looked after.

Speaking to the Yorkshire Post, he said: “Actually, I haven’t needed to go to the doctor myself. I needed to go to an osteopath when I picked up my daughter and threw her up in the air... but the great thing about NHS doctors is if my children needed to go to an A & E department - and thankfully they didn’t during the junior doctors strike - I know doctors would be totally professional.

A member of the CWU pins a pin to a cardboard cut out of Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt as members of the union join junior doctors on the picket lines.

“If I needed a life saving operation they wouldn’t think twice about it and because that is who they are and that is the ethics of their profession. It wouldn’t actually cross my mind.”

Mr Hunt, who has been Health Secretary since 2012, laughed as he recounted the story of when US President Ronald Reagan jokingly checked he was being treated by a Republican doctor before being put under an anaesthetic.

He said: “Do you remember the story of when Reagan was shot and he was wheeled in a stretcher into the hospital and looked up at the surgeon and said ‘please tell me you’re not a Democrat’.

“Well...I haven’t had any Reagan moments!”

Picture: Lorne Campbell / Guzelian. Junior doctors strike outside Harrogate District Hospital, Harrogate, North Yorkshire, on Wednesday morning in the latest day of strike action, which will last for 48 hours. 6 APRIL 2016.

Recounting the last time he had any kind of medical check up, he said it was likely to have been during the General Election at a pharmacy.

He added that all of his three children, aged two, four and six were born at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital - his youngest born during his time as Health Secretary.

He said: “They did a great job.”