More widespread public debate on rationing is essential

Editor—We find it significant that none of the clinicians who contributed to the conference “Rationing in the NHS: Time to Get Real” signed the open letter to Frank Dobson.1 In the letter, rationing is defined as occurring when not all health services can be provided to everybody who might benefit from them, a definition so broad that it can be said always to have existed. Yet most British clinicians would not recognise the examples given as rationing. A …