Lord Justice Diplock said: ‘The duty to provide hospital and specialist services is imposed upon the Minister. It is in its nature a duty which he can only perform vicariously through agents acting on his behalf. The Act requires him to do so through the immediate agency of the Regional Hospital Boards. The Regional Hospital Boards, being corporations, can themselves only do the physical acts involved in the provision of the services on behalf of the Minister, vicariously through their offices and servants. Any act done by an officer or servant of a Regional Hospital Board for the purpose of providing hospital or specialist services is accordingly done on behalf of the Minister in performance of the statutory duty which is imposed upon him. Their acts are acts of a government department.’
Willmer LJ said that in mid-Victorian times the treatment of patients in hospitals would have been regarded as ‘something quite foreign to the functions of government’ but there there has been, since those times: ‘a revolution in political thought and a totally different conception prevails today as to what is and what is not within the functions of Government’.
Judges:
Lord Justice Diplock, Willmer LJ
Citations:
[1964] Ch 614
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Cited by:
Approved – British Medical Association v Greater Glasgow Health Board HL 1989
The House considered the availability of orders against the Crown in Scotland. It is inconceivable that Parliament should have intended to fetter the right of the subject to obtain a prohibitory order more strictly in Scotland than in England. The . .
Applied – Frame v Grampian University Hospitals NHS Trust HCJ 14-Feb-2004
The defendant NHS trust objected as to the leading of certain evidence by the prosecutor, saying it infringed the right to a fair trial.
Held: As a governmental body rather the Trust could not have human rights capable of being infringed, it . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Administrative, Health
Updated: 09 May 2022; Ref: scu.194094