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15 December 2023 / Nicholas Dobson
Issue: 8053 / Categories: Features , Local government
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Mental health aftercare—which authority pays?

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Nicholas Dobson expertly dissects the allocation of financial responsibility for aftercare in a recent case
  • Covers R (Worcestershire County Council) v Secretary of State for Health and Social Care.
  • The duty under s 117(2) of the Mental Health Act to provide aftercare services automatically ceases if and when the person concerned is detained under s 3 (or another provision specified in s 117(1)).
  • The words ‘ordinarily resident in’ in s 117(3)(a) must be given their usual meaning.

Back in the 1950s two strange little fellows with bizarre voices were all the rage on children’s TV. For Bill and Ben were the Flower Pot Men, who not only lived in two adjacent flower pots (with a friendly weed in the middle) but were also made of flower pots. One of the chaps would frequently cause a mishap, prompting a soprano narrator to sing: ‘Was it Bill or was it Ben; which of those two Flower Pot Men?’

This ditty recently came to mind in the much more serious context of

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