Shared values are the bedrock on which the elements of our nation are built. Our values are given shape and meaning by the institutions that people know and trust, from the NHS to Parliament. (Ministry of Justice, 2007)

‘PRESCRIPTIONS FREE FOR EVERYONE: but only if you live in Wales’, said the front page of the Daily Express on 26 January 2007. ‘Anger over double standards in our Health Service’ was the topic; ‘Critics blame Labour's devolution programme, which handed powers over health from London to Cardiff and Edinburgh’, explained the text.

‘MEDICAL APARTHEID’ said the front page of the Daily Mail on 20 October 2006. ‘Another life-extending drug joins list of medicines given to Scots but denied the English’. The following story quoted the Conservative health spokesperson: ‘either we have a National Health Service or we don’t. In fact, it has become a Scottish and a separate English health service.’

‘UK's apartheid in medical care’ said The Sun on 10 January 2008. ‘The National Health Service is 60 this year – but don't break out the bubbly and the party poppers just yet. Once the envy of the world, it is now dogged by controversy. Despite a dedicated workforce and record levels of investment, the NHS is unable to guarantee the same level of care for everyone in the UK. Yet this was one of its founding principles when Labour set it up in 1948. A new report blames devolution and claims it has led to four different healthcare systems for England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland…. The break-up has penalised England most’. A handy guide lists the medicines and services that are unique to each system, and then gives practical advice on how to ‘BEAT THE SYSTEM’, in ‘LEGAL experts say you don't have to live permanently in Scotland to get drugs banned in England’. It is not clear whether the confusion of ‘banned’ and ‘not funded by the NHS’ was a simple mistake by the paper.