Health Secretary details rejection of Hawking’s claims about NHS

HEALTH SECRETARY Jeremy Hunt has returned to the fray in his spat with Stephen Hawking, inset, issuing a detailed rebuttal of the world-renowned scientist’s claim that the NHS was at risk of privatisation under the Tories.

Professor Hawking used a high-profile lecture last week to warn that the Government was taking the health service towards a USstyle insurance system.

The 75-year-old physicist, who was diagnosed with motor neurone disease in 1962, said he “would not be here today if it were not for the service”. He also took Mr Hunt to task over his plans for a seven-day NHS, accusing him of cherrypicking research findings which backed his case. Prof Hawking has won the backing of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, but Mr Hunt used a series of tweets to say he was wrong about the research findings. Now, the Health Secretary has used an article on The Guardian website to counter his argument in detail. “I am afraid Professor Stephen Hawking... is once again wrong in his characterisation of government policy towards the NHS,” said Mr Hunt. “He does not deny that it has record funding or record numbers of doctors and nurses, but describes these as a ‘distraction’.

“Such figures surely are crucial evidence if he is arguing, as he did last weekend, that the direction of the NHS is heading towards a US-style insurance system.”

Mr Hunt it was “incorrect” to claim that new “accountable care organisation models” in parts of the NHS were a step towards an insurance-based system.

“This has absolutely nothing to do with the funding model of the NHS, which will remain a singlepayer taxpayer-funded system free at the point of use,” he said.