Resource allocation cases

Burke v GMC

No common law duty to provide treatment unless doctor assumed responsibility for the patient’s care. No generic right to treatment.

Condliff

BMI too low (outside policy requirements), did IFR, Art 8 ECHR doesn’t give rise to +ve duty to consider things wider than medical needs and conditions.

GCHQ - Wednesbury unreasonable

‘So unreasonable in defiance of logic or accepted moral standards.’

Ex p Hincks

Delay in hip treatment, court wouldn’t substitute doctor’s judgement. ‘Duty to provide services in s3(1) gave the minister a discretion as to the disposition of financial resources.’

Ex p Walker

Delay in heart surgery, court wouldn’t substitute doctor’s judgement

Ex p Collier

Postponement of 4y/o’s life-saving surgery, court wouldn’t substitute doctor’s judgement

Ex p B

Refusal to fund further treatment for 10y/o w leukaemia. ‘Difficult and agonising judgments have to be made as to how a limited hospital budget is best allocated to the max advantage of max number.’ ‘The courts are not arbiters as to the merits of cases of this kind … only rule upon the lawfulness of decisions.’

Ex p Fisher

Local policy had blanket ban on funding drug, failure to consider national guidance. ‘They were not entitled to do’. ‘It is absurd that a survey must be made of all patients who are, or might be, in need of the same treatments in the area.’

Ex p Coughlan

‘home for life’, health authority gave a substantive legitimate expectation, abuse of power. ‘Court will have the task of weighing the requirements of fairness against any overriding interest relied upon for the change of policy.’ Breach of art8, interference not ‘necessary in a democratic society’

Ex p A,D,G

Authority’s policy not to fund gender reassignment was unlawful and irrational as it didn’t consider it was proper treatment of a recognised condition. Rigid policy = authority fettered their discretion

Rogers

‘policy of withholding assistance save in unstated exceptional circumstances … will be rational … provided that it’s possible to envisage … what such circumstances might be’

Murphy

‘Court will intervene w assessments and judgments only in very rare circumstances.’ Trust had to consider the patient’s particular circumstances individually and then as a whole ‘in the round’.

Re J (A Minor)

‘The court is in no position to express any view as to how [authorities] should elect to deploy [resources]’

GCHQ - Illegality

‘decision maker must understand correctly the law that regulates his decision-making power and must give effect to it’

British Oxygen

Anyone exercising statutory discretion can’t ‘shut his ears to an application’.

Ann Marie Rogers

Policy required ‘exceptional personal or clinical circumstances.’ Held irrational. Personal situation not relevant to whether it should be funded for the benefit of the patient. After policy held irrational, didn’t consider art2.

Otley

Policy is lawful but the application of it was not. Ignored many factors.

GCHQ - Procedural impropreity

‘failure to observe basic rules of natural justice or failure to act with procedural fairness.’

Rose

Authority ‘disagreeing’ w NICE is not legitimate as it is scientific evidence.

Savage

Known suicide risk, art2 triggered by ‘real and immediate risk to life’

Rabone

Suicide in NHS Trust. SC gave 3 key factors to engage +ve duties: real and immediate risk, knowledge of risk, sufficient link w responsibility of the State. NEED ALL 3

Price

Prison authority’s inadequate treatment amounted to violation of art3

Watts

1 year wait for hip replacement not a violation of art3