Our healthcare team has considerable experience of advising NHS Trusts and other healthcare bodies in relation to public law issues which might give rise to claims for judicial review. We have advised a number of healthcare clients on the procedures with which they need to comply in the context of situations such as proposed hospital closures in order to avoid the risk of judicial review proceedings being commenced.
We have been instructed in a number of high profile applications for judicial review, including:
- Challenge to the decision of hospital managers not to discharge a patient where the decision had not taken into account whether the patient would be likely to act in a manner dangerous to other people
- Challenge by mental patients to a Trust’s decision to close the hospital where they were being treated, on grounds, inter alia, that they had been promised a “home for life”
- Case regarding whether members of a mental health trust were legally permitted to order a patient’s discharge by majority vote
- Case determining whether a private hospital carrying out some statutory duties under the Mental Health Act 1983 was to be regarded as a “public body”
- Various claims for wrongful detention by patients detained under the Mental Health Act 1983
- Acting in the House of Lords case of Count von Bramdenburg regarding the legality of "re-sectioning" patients under the Mental Health Act
- Case determining the proper procedure to be adopted by Primary Care Trusts at "Performers List" hearings
The Group is also frequently called upon by Trusts and other healthcare bodies to advise on the implications of the Human Rights Act 1998 and such advise often arises in the context of judicial review claims.