Health

The duty to provide accommodation under s 21 of the National Assistance Act 1948 was conditional upon the applicant being in need of “care and attention which [was] not otherwise available to them”. It was settled law that “care and attention” meant more than “accommodation”, the natural and ordinary meaning of those words being “looked after”, which meant “doing something for the person being cared for which he [could not] or should not be expected to do for himself”; medical care being expressly excluded by the section.

It was also settled that the threshold for “care and attention” was relatively low, but it was essentially a matter for the relevant local authority to assess. As with decisions made under s 117 of the Mental Health Act 1983 (MHA 1983), in relation to decisions under s 21, the courts (on a judicial review) had to give considerable respect to the professional judgment of the local authority in