What now for deprivations of liberty?
What will the effect of the postponement of the Liberty Protections Safeguards be on local authorities? Local Government Lawyer asked 50 adult social care lawyers for their views on the potential consequences.
SPOTLIGHT |
SPOTLIGHT |
A judicial review challenge against a clinical commissioning group (CCG) has been withdrawn after the CCG agreed to amend its patient and public involvement strategy and other documents.
The claimants – members of campaign group Protect our NHS – argued that Bristol CCG had failed to involve patients in its decisions about the procurement of £500m of health care services.
The CCG has now agreed, amongst other things, in a settlement order to:
Bristol CCG, which has agreed to pay 80% of the claimants’ costs, said: “The matter has not been decided by a court and no finding of unlawful behaviour by the CCG has been made.”
Dr Martin Jones, chair of Bristol Clinical Commissions Group said: “We are pleased to have achieved this outcome, it is however, disappointing that an expensive legal route has been pursued over a more constructive dialogue, which was what we encouraged as a CCG.”
A war of words subsequently emerged after the CCG claimed that the legal challenge had been “dropped”. The claimants’ lawyers, Leigh Day, said they would seek a retraction.
Rosa Curling, a solicitor at the law firm, said: “The judicial review proceedings we took were to expose the fact that the CCG had breached its legal duties to involve patients in its decision making.
“They initially denied that they had acted unlawfully but, once proceedings were issued, Bristol CCG backed down, and agreed to revise a series of its policies and its core constitution to bring them into line with the law.”
The CCG published on its website a summary of the legal position written by its lawyers, Bevan Brittan.