Originally published March 2006
The Human Rights Act is expressed to apply to public authorities. However, a draft bill has now been placed before Parliament which seeks to extend the definition of public authorities to include any body that is regulated under the Care Standards Act. This would include all care homes who would then be susceptible to challenge under the Human Rights Act in respect of their care of residents. There is obviously ample scope for this to be used to fuel complaints by disgruntled residents and their families.
If enacted, the Bill would mean that care homes would need to comply with the following rights set out in the Human Rights Act, and would need to ensure that their staff were aware of the implications of the Act which has already had a significant impact on the way the NHS delivers services.
The rights are:
- Right to life
- Prohibition of inhuman and degrading treatment
- Prohibition of slavery enforced labour
- Right to liberty and security
- Right to a fair trial
- No Punishment without law
- Right to respect for private and family life
- Freedom of thought, conscience and religion
- Freedom of expression
- Freedom of assembly and association
- Right to marry
- Prohibition of discrimination
- Prohibition of abuse of rights
- Protection of property
- Right to education
- Right to free elections
- Abolition of the death penalty
The rights likely to impact on care homes are the right to a private and family life (and the implications that this has on transfer of residents, termination of residents contracts and restrictions on visiting for difficult relatives), and the prohibition on inhuman and degrading treatment which will no doubt be alleged in complaints about care.
The Bill also seeks to place a duty on the Food Standards Agency to improve the health, wellbeing and nutrition of the elderly and to provide further powers for local authorities to protect those in need of care and protection.
The Bill will obviously be subject to the normal parliamentary process and may not ultimately be passed. However, if care homes do become public authorities the scope for legal challenge will increase considerably.
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Footnote
1 Undefined death