Choice of Downing Street health adviser prompts fears that copayments may be on the agenda

Fears that the appointment of Nick Seddon as the new special adviser on health at Downing Street is a sign that the government is considering the introduction of copayments for NHS patients have been dismissed by senior health policy figures who know him well.

Before being invited to advise on health and social care as part of a new team led by Jo Johnson—the younger brother of London mayor Boris Johnson—Seddon was deputy director of the right wing think tank Reform, an organisation that promotes free market policies and small government.

Before joining Reform, Seddon—only in his mid-30s—was head of communications at Circle, the first private company to win a franchise to run an NHS hospital, Hinchingbrooke in Cambridgeshire.

Seddon has been reported to have argued that, …