Hunt to BBC: Your NHS coverage is so biased

A WAR of words between Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt and the BBC over its coverage of the NHS has been revealed in a series of hard-hitting exchanges.

In letters to James Harding, the Corporation’s £340,000-a-year head of news, Mr Hunt repeatedly attacked the BBC claiming its coverage was ‘inaccurate and damaging.’

In one complaint Mr Hunt said a Labour Party statement was strikingly similar to a BBC piece.

He told Mr Harding: ‘Given your role as a public service broadcaster, I find this, and the endorsement of Labour’s argument, unacceptable.’ He added that it ‘raises serious concerns about the impartiality of the BBC reporting on health’.

All the allegations were rebuffed by Mr Harding and in one letter he sought to assure Mr Hunt there was no ‘agenda’ against the Government.

However, Mr Hunt claimed Mr Harding’s responses left him with no confidence that the BBC could uphold its role as a public service broadcaster in the lead up to last year’s General Election.

The letters between the two men, have only just come to light. They were ordered to be released by the Information Commissioner after the Department of Health blocked a freedom of information request.

In total Mr Hunt wrote four letters over a seven-month period between June 2014 and January 2015. Three were repeat allegations that the BBC had published a ‘serious and damaging’ article on the BBC news website that the NHS had failed to meet its A&E waiting targets.

Mr Hunt also complained about a story about a potential ‘£2bn blackhole’ in NHS budgets.