Editor—Longley is a man after my own heart. His personal view on private medicine is gloriously disputatious, and he has it bang to rights.¹ I received an unctuous letter on embossed paper recently that declared “What a pleasure it was to meet your charming patient Mrs X... I think she has Y, but for the sake of completeness, I have ordered a number of (expensive) tests and will see her shortly with the results. In the meantime I suggest she takes Zamzam XL and Zipzip MR.”

I see Mrs X a couple of days later as an emergency because Zamzam and Zipzip are too expensive for her to buy privately and would I please prescribe same instead (non-generically of course)? I feel angry and manipulated.

Two weeks later the second letter arrived. It's been a triumph for Zamzam, and the impoverished Mrs X is now to be slotted nicely back into the NHS.

It happened again yesterday.