A decision not to fund gender re-assignment surgery was operated as a blanket policy without proper regard for individual cases and so was unlawful as an effective fetter on the discretion which the Health Authority was obliged to exercise. A lawful policy giving low priority was possible if it recognised clinical need and treated each request on its merits.
Auld LJ said: ‘it is an unhappy but unavoidable feature of state funded health care that regional health authorities have to establish certain priorities in funding different treatments from their finite resources. It is natural that each authority, in establishing its own priorities, will give greater priority to life-threatening and other grave illnesses than to others obviously less demanding of medical intervention. The precise allocation and weighting of priorities is clearly a matter of judgment for each authority, keeping well in mind its statutory obligations to meet the reasonable requirements of all those within its area for which it is responsible.’ A policy which allows for exceptions in undefined exceptional circumstances is not unlawful ‘provided that the policy genuinely recognises the possibility of there being an overriding clinical need and requires each request for treatment to be considered on its individual merits.’
Judges:
Auld LJ, Buxton LJ
Citations:
Times 24-Aug-1999, [1999] EWCA Civ 2022, [2000] 1 WLR 977
Links:
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – Regina v North and East Devon Health Authority ex parte Coughlan and Secretary of State for Health Intervenor and Royal College of Nursing Intervenor CA 16-Jul-1999
Consultation to be Early and Real Listening
The claimant was severely disabled as a result of a road traffic accident. She and others were placed in an NHS home for long term disabled people and assured that this would be their home for life. Then the health authority decided that they were . .
Cited – In Re Findlay, in re Hogben HL 1985
A public authority, and the Prison Service in particular, is free, within the limits of rationality, to decide on any policy as to how to exercise its discretions; it is entitled to change its policy from time to time for the future, and a person . .
Cited by:
Cited – Watts, Regina (on the Application of) v Bedford Primary Care Trust and others Admn 1-Oct-2003
The claimant sought hip-replacement treatment. She was first told that she would have to wait a year. As her lawyers pressed the respondent, she looked at obtaining treatment in France. As she decided to take the treatment, the respondent reduced . .
Cited – Rogers, Regina (on the Application of) v Secretary of State for Health Admn 15-Feb-2006
The claimant suffered breast cancer. She sought treatment from the defendant with a drug called Herceptin, and now sought judicial review of the refusal of such treatment. Various stages in the licensing of the drug were yet to be completed. It was . .
Interpreted – Rogers, Regina (on the Application of) v Swindon NHS Primary Care Trust CA 12-Apr-2006
The claimant challenged the policy of her local health authority not to allow prescription to her of the drug Herceptin.
Held: The policy had not been settled upon lawfully and was to be set aside. On the one hand the PCT developed a policy . .
Cited – AC v Berkshire West Primary Care Trust, Equality and Human Rights Commissions intervening Admn 25-May-2010
The claimant, a male to female transsexual, challenged a decision by the respondent to refuse breast augmentation treatment. The Trust had a policy ‘GRS is a Low Priority treatment due to the limited evidence of clinical effectiveness and is not . .
Still good law – A, Regina (on the Application of) v West Middlesex University Hospital NHS Trust Admn 11-Apr-2008
A sought judicial review of the decision of the defendants not to provide him with free medical care. The defendants had relied on National Guidance. He was an asylum applicant with temporary admission but claimed that he was ordinarily resident in . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Health
Updated: 31 May 2022; Ref: scu.146937
