George Allan

It would be remiss of somebody who is not an ignorant American boomer to point out that the NHS is funded overwhelmingly from public money. We pay for it. Our taxes fund the hospitals, the staff, the equipment, the medicines, the legal departments and, crucially, the bill when somebody decides to drag an NHS trust through court. So when Growling threatens an already-struggling NHS institution with an endless procession of lawsuits, she is not threatening some faceless private corporation with shareholders and a Cayman Islands account. She is threatening a public service paid for by the British people. Every pound diverted into legal costs, settlements and defending litigation is a pound that ultimately comes out of the same finite public resources paying for nurses, cancer treatment, ambulances, mental-health services and operating theatres. Of course public bodies must be legally accountable. Nobody gets to wave an NHS lanyard around like a magic immunity card. But “SUE THEM INTO OBLIVION” has a rather different flavour when “them” is British universal healthcare. Congratulations, lads. You have become so consumed by the culture war that you are now cheering on the prospect of extracting money from the NHS and calling it a victory for ordinary women. Whose money did you think it was? Growling's? No, sweetheart. Ours.