The parents of a child named Jaymee Bowen claimed that she should receive chemotherapy and a second bone marrow transplant for their 10 year old’s acute myeloid leukaemia.

Sir Thomas Bingham MR held, the same day, the Health Authority had acted rationally and fairly and intervention would be misguided.

They cannot pay their nurses as much as they would like; they cannot provide all the treatments they would like; they cannot purchase all the extremely expensive medical equipment they would like; they cannot carry out all the research they would like; they cannot build all the hospitals and specialist units they would like.

The consultant who had agreed changed tack, did not provide a second bone marrow transplant, and did an experimental treatment called donor lymphocyte infusion.

That evening Channel 4 cancelled its scheduled late-night programmes to enable the TV discussion After Dark to debate the issues of the case, with among others Julian Tudor Hart, Martin Israel and the NHS Director of Public Health who had turned down Jaymee's family when they asked for further treatment.