Highways England rebrand accused of being an 'offensive' waste of £7m

[cb a1]

While I agree that technically HS England would be more correct, I think this comes down to recognition. As a set of initials pretty much everyone knows what NHS stands for, while HS could stand for High Speed, Highways Scotland, Hawker Siddeley etc etc.

[pedant]There are no Highways in Scotland, so technically that one disnae work.[/pedant]

[booshank]

Highways England ungrammatical ?

A good number of the airlines in the world seem to have longstanding two word names, the medium followed by the country. Air France, Air Canada, Air New Zealand, etc.

Then we have NHS England, much in the news at the moment which must delight the PR agency that thought it up. To me this seems an oxymoron, the N is for National, presumably of Britain, then it qualifies it down to just England. Surely it should be HS England ?

While I agree that technically HS England would be more correct, I think this comes down to recognition. As a set of initials pretty much everyone knows what NHS stands for, while HS could stand for High Speed, Highways Scotland, Hawker Siddeley etc etc.

"National Health Service" is the name of the organisation, not just a description of it, so I don't think it would be logical to modify it in that way.

[trickstat]

While I agree that technically HS England would be more correct, I think this comes down to recognition. As a set of initials pretty much everyone knows what NHS stands for, while HS could stand for High Speed, Highways Scotland, Hawker Siddeley etc etc.

[pedant]There are no Highways in Scotland, so technically that one disnae work.[/pedant]

Just High Roads and Low Roads!

[Nwallace]

Highways England ungrammatical ?

A good number of the airlines in the world seem to have longstanding two word names, the medium followed by the country. Air France, Air Canada, Air New Zealand, etc.

Then we have NHS England, much in the news at the moment which must delight the PR agency that thought it up. To me this seems an oxymoron, the N is for National, presumably of Britain, then it qualifies it down to just England. Surely it should be HS England ?

It's the Four Nation approach; the UK Government decides something needs done and then the 4 Secretary of States go off and define their version of it with three of them coming up with the same name followed by "oh we'd better add a qualifier to it".

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/19 ... 027_en.pdf

[orudge]

Although at times it would be helpful if the UK government were to refer to “NHS England” more explicitly rather than just “the NHS”, which often doesn’t apply to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

[Ruperts Trooper]

Although at times it would be helpful if the UK government were to refer to “NHS England” more explicitly rather than just “the NHS”, which often doesn’t apply to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

That's the rub - there's no clear distinction between Government UK and Government England

[c2R]

Although at times it would be helpful if the UK government were to refer to “NHS England” more explicitly rather than just “the NHS”, which often doesn’t apply to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

That's the rub - there's no clear distinction between Government UK and Government England

But England doesn't have a devolved government so there is only the UK Government...

[Ruperts Trooper]

Although at times it would be helpful if the UK government were to refer to “NHS England” more explicitly rather than just “the NHS”, which often doesn’t apply to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

That's the rub - there's no clear distinction between Government UK and Government England

But England doesn't have a devolved government so there is only the UK Government...

We all know why - I'm not sure if politicians can't tell the difference between matters affecting only England and those affecting the whole of the UK - or maybe it's a deliberate strategy to confuse.

[Glen]

Then we have NHS England, much in the news at the moment which must delight the PR agency that thought it up. To me this seems an oxymoron, the N is for National, presumably of Britain, then it qualifies it down to just England. Surely it should be HS England ?

The NHS has never been a single organisation for the UK. Since it was founded it has been four separate organisations for the nations of the UK, it's merely the concept of universal healthcare that's national.

In the past it was all referred to as "the NHS", but since administration has passed to the devolved government there have been separate names and branding for NHS Scotland, NHS Wales and HSC.