News

In the case of R (C, M, P and HM) v Brent, Kensington and Chelsea and Westminster Mental Health NHS Trust the judge warned both parties in a dispute over a residential home closure that legal action was not the best resolution.

This was another case in which residents of a residential home sought to assert that they had been promised a "home for life" when they moved into the home, and therefore there had to be an overriding public interest before they could be moved.

Alternatively, it was argued that there was a duty to consult the residents before the closure occurred.

The court rejected the arguments for a number of reasons. Firstly, it emphasised the need for convincing evidence that there had been a promise of a home for life and found such evidence lacking. Secondly, it found that the home proposed to be closed was in fact only a temporary placement for the residents, which gave them no right to be consulted before the decision was taken.

The judge accepted that article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights was engaged (right to respect for home and private life) where people were moved from residential placements, but that any interference with the right was justified as the intention was to provide the best medical care to the residents.

Lastly, and importantly for practitioners, this was another case (see Cowl - click here to read a report), where the judge was of the opinion that legal proceedings were not the appropriate way to resolve disputes between the claimant and the trust, and that the case had been pursued with "a degree of fervour which has been misplaced", and that the adversarial process had led to the exacerbation of differences between the cared for and the carers.

Stephen Cragg

Doughty Street Chambers