Personal views: Flying the flag
Authors: Andrew Bamji
Journal: BMJ (2002)

Our hospital has, since its foundation, had as its symbol the turkey oak (probably the oldest in the country) that was in its grounds. The oak tree was incorporated into the hospital's flag when the new building was commissioned in 1974 and our green flag with gold tree has flown ever since.

But suddenly someone decided that the NHS must have a corporate “logo.” All of the old letterheadings were to be swept away, to be replaced by a nationwide, blue and white “NHS.” Reams of paper defined the new logo—its colours (Pantone 300 blue on white, or white on blue), its position, and the blank space around it. No variation would be allowed (though for laser printers a black and white version was also defined). All signs had to carry the new logo. The result is that all NHS letters now look the same, so it is difficult to tell at a glance where any letter has come from. I wondered how dyslexic or illiterate patients might decide which hospital they had now to visit, regretted the passing of the oak tree from our letterheads, and bewailed the loss of individual identity which would, in my view, hinder our hospital's efforts to develop and maintain corporate pride. But there was nothing I could do. Orders were orders.

Our hospital was redecorated. A sober two-tone scheme replaced the bright corridors, with a below-dado blue that darkened the air (and was manifestly not Pantone 300. I await a visit from the NHS Colour Audit Division). And then our flag came down, to be replaced by a dirty blue and white dishcloth that said “NHS.”

Now come on. An NHS flag? We will have a Department for Education flag outside every school next (or maybe a Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs flag for every slaughterhouse). I raised the issue with the chief executive to be told that it was now “policy” to fly an NHS flag and that our old, revered, loved, cherished flag would be consigned to the archives. I pointed out that the guidance actually allowed the use of traditional, longstanding symbols, but it seems that there is an executive “down” on flags at Queen Mary's.

The Department of Health website says, “The policy covers all logos, publications, signage, recruitment advertising, stationery, uniforms, and websites produced by the NHS. For corporate information (signs, logos, stationery, recruitment advertising, uniforms) there is one set style” (www.doh.gov.uk/nhsidentity). An exhaustive and comprehensive list, but no flags.

Of course, if the National Signage (Flags), or NSF, is hidden in a distant sub-page of NHS G01 that I have overlooked, then I am sorry. But if so, the designer should be court martialled. A flag must have presence. The NHS flag does not. It resembles the anaemic and pathetic banners you see fluttering in rows outside petrol filling stations, superstores, and McDonald's. It looks thin and cheap. But then, perhaps that is appropriate . . .

Since the demise of the Soviet Union and the break up of the Red Army the NHS is the largest employer in Europe, and it has clearly taken on some of the unsavoury and unnecessary attributes of a communist state. Its national flag is but one. When as a schoolboy researching Chinese art I wrote to the Chinese embassy for background information, I was sent a pile of propaganda magazines full of smiling proletarian faces, apparatchiks, new buildings, five year plans and the like. Into my in-tray now drops, monthly, an NHS magazine of identical format (on better paper). Reform is all the rage (like the Great Leap Forward, and look what happened to that). There is a National Plan. We are all happy happy happy (and surveyed regularly and at great length and expense to prove it), we toe the party line, and we worship the flag, all glorious above. 

I am going to write to Secretary Milburn and Chairman Blair to suggest that the name “NHS” has become synonymous with failure and, like the Post Office, we should be renamed. PanHygea sounds good (the spelling is deliberate; no one who writes these illiterate government documents will get the order of i and e right). But what I want, what I really really want, is my own, Pantone 363, hospital flag back.

In another 50 years, of course, history will repeat itself and, like the Soviet Union, the NHS will break up into individual, manageable, corporate, proud, diverse, units. Perhaps we might even call some of them hospitals. Let a hundred flowers bloom, and a thousand flags fly. But now, rather than later.

PS: The medical staff committee flexed its few remaining muscles, joined the argument, and lo! the flag flies again . . . but for how long?