Top Tory Michael Gove has admitted he uses private healthcare.
The Levelling-Up Secretary said he had “on occasion used private medicine” - while NHS patients wait weeks for a GP appointment.
It comes after it emerged Rishi Sunak is registered with a private GP surgery that promises to see patients with urgent concerns “on the day”.
The Prime Minister uses a west London clinic that charges £250 for a half-hour appointment - and offers e-mail and phone consultations for £150, home visits for £400 to £500, and prescriptions for £80.
Mr Gove told Sky News: “I wherever possible always use the NHS but I have on occasion used private medicine.”
Asked if it was right that the boss of the NHS could avoid the queue by paying £250, he replied: “I think the most important thing is making sure that all of us do what we can in order to ensure that the NHS gets the resources that it needs.”
Asked if he supports Mr Sunak’s decision he replied: “No, I wouldn't give anyone else any advice about their own healthcare choices.”
GP waiting times have soared and more than half a million people in London alone waited more than two weeks for an appointment in September.
Short-lived Health Secretary Therese Coffey had vowed to cut maximum waits to two weeks - but she was moved in Rishi Sunak ’s reshuffle.
She later admitted it was only an “expectation” not a legal target, and could mean a phone call.
The Autumn Statement last week announced £3.3bn extra for NHS England in each of 2023/24 and 2024/25.
But the Health Foundation has warned real-terms funding for the Health Department will still rise by less than in the last decade.
The respected think tank warned: “Future spending growth at these levels raises big questions over the scale and pace of the recovery.
“Health services [are] facing a cocktail of higher inflation, higher demand, ongoing costs from Covid, staff shortages, and challenging efficiency requirements.
“It also leaves no room for modernisation or improvement.”
Dr Jacky Davis, consultant radiologist and founder member of the campaign group Keep Our NHS Public, said: “If the NHS was well funded and resourced (as it was in 2010) no one would need to go private.
“Normalising paying for care because of long waits is a slippery slope to a two-tier system that ultimately benefits no one.
“The fact that those in power can so readily access private treatment is a disincentive to improving the system which the vast majority of us rely on."
It came as Mr Gove laughed off a fellow minister’s joke about his cocaine use.
Mr Gove admitted in 2019 that he had taken the Class A drug “on several occasions at social events more than 20 years ago”, and regretted it.
Policing Minister Chris Philp is said to have shocked policing figures at a Crimestoppers fundraising dinner by cracking a joke about Mr Gove.
He is said to have joked that a tip-off about a £200m shipment of cocaine in a lorry had left Mr Gove “quite excited”.
This morning Mr Gove told GB News: “Chris was giving a witty after dinner speech. And my view is that if we were to ban people making jokes about politicians, then it would be a sorry, sorry state.
“So, Chris is a deft and witty speaker and as far as I was concerned, the appropriate response was for everyone either to smile wryly or to laugh heartily.”
Watch Michael Gove pinch water from TV host: Follow Mirror Politics on TikTok here.
