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NHS (Charitable Trusts Etc) Bill

I am not sure that those are the circumstances under which the Secretary of State would use his discretion to allow the logo to be used. I am thinking more of a sign outside a charity shop that supports the NHS, saying “We support the local NHS”, with the name of the local hospital that it is supporting and the local hospital’s logo, which includes the letters “NHS”. I am thinking of that sort of circumstance. It is not about promoting the charity as an offshoot of the NHS; it is about indicating its co-operation with the NHS.

Defibrillator boxes give the name of the ambulance service—the ambulance service’s logo includes the letters “NHS”—to indicate that people should ring 999. The ambulance service will then give them the code to open the box and talk them through how to use the equipment. Most of us probably would not know how to use it without some advice. It was entirely rational to use the

logo until some idiotic bureaucracy got in the way. Initially, it was very stubborn—the worst type of pettifogging bureaucracy. If the Secretary of State had had the power to cut through such bureaucracy, that could just have been done.

The circumstances in which the discretion is used would be limited to where there was genuine co-operation—where the charitable sector and the NHS are working hand in glove—and there was a benefit from using it. It is not about charities posing as the NHS where they are not part of the NHS. If the Secretary of State thought the logo was being misused, he would have the power to rescind the permission. This protected and limited power would solve a particular problem.