The Case

National Health Service General medical services. The Administrative Court held that the defendant independent regulator of National Health Service (NHS) trusts had erred in law in adopting the approach which it had to the fixing of a cap on the proportion of a foundation trust's income which could be derived from private charges. The concept of 'income derived from' meant that any income from an intermediate structure, interposed to perform private work in that way, was caught by the cap. The approach followed by the defendant did not reflect the intention of Parliament, as expressed in the legislation: there was a statutory context and legal pedigree to the concept of 'income derived from', in the instant case, which determined its meaning, but nowhere in the background material to the defendant's decision did there appear to be any real consideration of that concept.