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COMMUNITY CARE 

Including Judicial Review

 

Public bodies such as local authorities, health Trusts and Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) make important decisions about the lives of vulnerable people and their rights to services. Sometimes these decisions are unlawful and may need to be challenged. Sometimes the bodies delay making a decision or do not reply at all and this may also need to be challenged.

 

Judicial review is the main legal process used to hold public bodies to account and to contest unlawful decisions. There are very strict time limits for bringing a challenge so it is important to contact us as soon as possible if you think that an unlawful decision has been made or there has been a delay in making a decision in urgent cases.

 

Mackintosh Law holds a contract with the Legal Aid Agency in Community Care which enables us to advise clients who may have been the subject of unlawful decision making by public authorities to find a remedy through legal aid funding, when they are eligible.

 

Judicial review is a complicated and specialist form of legal challenge and our expert team of advisors have extensive experience in bringing cases on behalf of vulnerable disabled people to enforce their legal rights to services. During Court proceedings we advise our clients every step of the way. We usually find that in most cases, the advice we give to clients about how best to access services they need means that Court proceedings are not necessary. Judicial review should only be used as a ‘last resort’ and we always advise clients about other available options to resolve their problem.

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These are example of cases where we can advise:

 

  • Rights to welfare services, such as help with personal care

  • Services to enable people to remain in their own homes

  • Rights to aids and adaptations in the home

  • Direct payments and personal budgets

  • Support for people on discharge from hospital, or to help safe discharge take place

  • Incontinence services

  • Wheelchair services

  • Support to help people to access the community

  • Challenges to closure of care homes and hospitals

  • Disputes between local authorities and NHS agencies about funding for cases, including NHS funded continuing care

  • Mental capacity issues (see our section on capacity)

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