06 May 2022
The Health Secretary unlawfully failed to consider the position of residents of care homes who were becoming infected with COVID-19 following the discharge of thousands of patients from NHS hospitals, the High Court held in a devastating ruling, R (Gardner & Anor) v Secretary of State for Health and Social Care [2022] EWHC 967 (Admin)
Writing in NLJ this week, John Ford, director of Sinclairslaw, which represented Dr Cathy Gardner and Faye Harris in the case, reviews the decision and concludes: ‘It strains credibility to accept that the defendants gave proper disclosure in this case.’
The former Health Secretary, Matt Hancock, has since stated he was not provided soon enough with information about asymptomatic infection. Ford writes, however: ‘The judgment does not support this. The public law claim strikingly succeeded because there was no evidence that the Minister had consulted anyone about how residents in care homes were to be looked after and protected following the discharge of hospital patients, some of whom may have been infected with the virus.’RELATED ARTICLES
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