Rishi Sunak is reported to be registered with a private GP practice that charges £250 for half-hour consultations, guarantees to see ‘urgent cases’ on the same day, and offers appointments at weekends and in the evenings.

If you are not an extremely wealthy former banker, or married to a billionaire’s daughter, you might baulk at the cost.

But you can get an appointment on the same day with an NHS GP, as I found out after a run one morning six months ago.

The familiar aches come and go, but this tightness in my chest felt different. I walked a bit, ran again, the tightness returned, so I walked home.

The best way to contact our GP is by using the online form, a response usually arriving within ten days. This time an email pinged back with an appointment for that afternoon (it’s an age-bracket thing).

The GP passed me on to a consultant, who booked me in for a cautionary cardiac scan at the hospital. After a bit of a wait, that scan is taking place this afternoon.

In the interim, I have walked more than ran, with some jog-walks, five minutes walking, a gentle speeding up, walking again. My squash has slowed, with a stretch up and down the corridor between games. Remarkably, the last three games have been won.

Breaks are also taken at badminton, to the concern of one friend who asks if I am all right, what with all the walking up and down while panting (allegedly).

Whether or not there is anything wrong will now be discovered, I guess. The consultant wondered about a touch of angina that only comes on during exercise.

Anyway, none of this is particularly interesting or unusual, but reading about the prime minister’s GP arrangement brought it to mind.

The story was reported in the Guardian, which wrote that: “Patients can request home visits from doctors for which they are charged between £400 and £500, depending on the time of day or night”. The clinic was also said to charge “up to £80 for prescriptions”.

Sunak has primly refused to answer questions about whether he has private healthcare, saying it was “not appropriate” to talk “about one’s family’s healthcare”.

Well, it seems highly appropriate if one happens to be the prime minister in charge of making decisions about how the rest of us are cared for by the NHS.

Sunak is so absurdly wealthy he cannot really have any idea how the less financially elevated get by.

As mentioned here before, Paul Waugh of the Independent calculated recently that Sunak, who was expensively educated at Winchester College, spends more than £60,000 a year on private education for his two daughters.

How can someone that wealthy understand the lives led by most people? Not sure he does at all, although there is probably a squeaky soundbite available somewhere.

You know, one thing that strikes me about Sunak is that he doesn’t really seem like a politician. It’s as if he is role-playing, having a go at something, chirruping out the sort of response he is expected to make, but leaving you to wonder if he believes any of it.

There is unendurable pressure on the NHS at the moment, partly caused by Covid, partly caused by long-term austerity (copyright George Osborne).

While Sunak stays shtum about his own health arrangements, there is always a pliant minister on hand to roll out the statistics.

“Judge him by his actions, and the health secretary’s actions, on the NHS,” the pensions secretary Mel Stride told Sky News, pointing to an extra £3.3bn unveiled for the health service in the autumn statement.

He added: “The commitment that we have to the NHS is absolutely central to this government. That is something that’s very much driven from the top by the prime minister.”

Well, yes, but elsewhere in the Tory undergrowth you will find more and more stories about how the NHS is falling apart, how we cannot carry on like this, pouring good money after bad, etcetera.

A Daily Telegraph leader two days ago continued this line of attack, while its never knowingly sensible columnist Allison Pearson joined in, saying “Let’s not criticise Rishy Sunak (or anyone else) for using a private GP. Given the alternative, who wouldn’t?”

Oh, me for a start, Allison. Alongside all the other millions of people who couldn’t remotely afford to dodge the queue.

Allison Pearson also describes the NHS as “appallingly broken”. Ah, yes, might that not be because it is slowly being ground down, so the only alternative is a total sell-off to a US insurance company.

Anyway, I have given myself a new nickname in the badminton WhatsApp group – Dickie Ticker.