There are fears the NHS is heading for another winter crisis after 20,000 patients were left waiting outside A&Es in ambulances in the last fortnight.

It might be the latest problem for Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt but it’s not the first. In his recent book, Adam Kay wrote an open letter (which you can read at the bottom of this story) to him over his treatment of junior doctors.

Here’s what happened when Mr Hunt invited him round for a chat...

(Image: Daily Mirror)

For an unsettling few weeks, Jeremy Hunt shot up in my estimation. This morally repugnant dark lord, whose hands are drenched with the blood of so many patients, whose policies and lies have chased thousands of doctors out of the profession, actually rose in my estimation.

I received a letter from him which essentially said “If you come in and meet me, will people stop sending me copies of your bloody book?”

The book in question, This is Going to Hurt: Secret Diaries of a Junior Doctor , is a genital-warts-and-all reflection of life on the front line of our poor embattled NHS.

It seems large num­­bers of the public had decided Hunt should receive a copy.

The book ends with a fairly brutal open letter to him and, reluctantly, I respected him for wanting to meet me after having read it. Potentially the first time any doctor has respected him.

A few weeks later I was escorted down the fittingly clinical corridors of the Department of Health by Chris, one of Jeremy’s junior apparatchiks.

At Hunt’s office Chris made the introductions and scuttled off to be replaced by the much dourer Ed, a special adviser. He was the Lurch to Jeremy’s Uncle Fester – entirely silent but about a foot taller than me – presumably there in case of some kind of assassination.

We shook hands – Jeremy’s was exaggerated strong, like a six-year-old boy trying to prove a point – and sat down on a U of white sofas around a coffee table.

(Image: SWNS)

I was initially struck by how humble he was. He had read my open letter and said he’d never felt more misunderstood.

He told me the junior doctors’ dispute was the low point of his career – a hotly contested feat, I imagine – and had affected him deeply.

I almost felt sorry for him. Almost. Then he said the strike had affected him as much as any of the 50,000 doctors involved and my sympathy evaporated.

He admitted he’d failed to communicate properly and said how deeply he regretted the strikes ever took place. My turn. I asked him: “If you could go back in time, what would you do differently?”

He insisted he wouldn’t change any­­thing he did at all, so I guess we have rather different ideas about “regret”.

I was keen to discuss the staffing crisis, which largely comes down to the retention of junior doctors. When I left in 2010 I was the first in my year to do so: a glitch in the matrix.

These days I can barely open Facebook without seeing brilliant doctors announcing they’re off.

Hunt denied there was a significant increase in junior doctors leaving. I offered the latest official statistics showing only half of them now continue after their first two years, a huge change from past years. “I don’t recognise those figures”, he said. About official figures.

(Image: Birmingham Mail)

The temperature in the room dropped a degree or so and our spectral chaperone Ed started glancing at his phone.

I wasn’t getting anywhere on that topic so I moved on to safety. I asked about the first rise in infant mortality in a decade, breathtakingly long ambulance response times and the failure to hit cancer appointment targets.

“We can all trade statistics,” he replied, countering my numbers with an 8% fall in urinary tract infections and pressure ulcers. It didn’t feel like the fairest trade.

Next up: private medicine. I’ve never been convinced Mr Hunt has the best interests of the NHS at heart.

“Can you promise you’ll never take a job in a private healthcare company in the future?” I asked. Pause. “I don’t think…” he stumbled. Ed’s breathing was suddenly very noticeable.

“I very much don’t think I would ever do that… but I have no problem with private healthcare.” Suddenly Jeremy snapped. He accused me of interrogating him, said it felt like I was interviewing him. “This isn’t the kind of chat I was hoping we would have.”

Perhaps his letter should have requested I ask no difficult questions.

(Image: Getty Images Europe)

Ed started typing on his phone – no doubt texting the woman who miraculously popped her head around the door not a minute later to say: “Your next appointment has arrived, Mr Hunt.”

I asked a few more questions but got little back. He’d been riled and our dis­­cussion was now over.

I hate to walk away from a burning building so I apologised that our talk wasn’t what he’d expected.

“I’m sorry if I come across nicer in print than I do in real life,” I said.

“Oh no,” he replied icily as he guided me out. “You’ve been quite consistent.”

As I was writing this my partner said someone had left a one-star review for This is Going to Hurt on Amazon. I was interested in how I’d upset a reader.

“Derogatory comments about pat­­ients” said the review. “Overall unfunny”. The reviewer’s username? Jeremy.

Adam's letter from Diaries of a Junior Doctor:

Roger Fisher was a professor of law at Harvard University who suggested back in 1981 that they should implant the American nuclear codes in the heart of a volunteer.

If the President wanted to press the big red button and kill hundreds of thousands of innocent people, then first he’d have to take a butcher’s knife and dig it out of the volunteer’s chest himself; so that he realizes what death actually means first hand, and understands the implications of his actions.

Because the President would never press the button if he had to do that. Similarly, you and your successor and their successors for ever more should have to work some shifts alongside junior doctors.

Not the thing you already do, where a chief executive shows you round a brand-new ward that’s gleaming like a space station.

No: palliate a cancer patient; watch a trauma victim have their leg amputated; deliver a dead baby.

Because I defy any human being, even you, to know what the job really entails and question a single doctor’s motivation.

If you knew, you would be applauding them, you’d be proud of them, you’d be humbled by them, and you’d be eternally grateful for everything

they do. The way you treat junior doctors demonstrably doesn’t work. I strongly suggest you seek a second opinion.