| R (Coughlan) v North and East Devon HA | |
|---|---|
 Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital | |
| Court | Court of Appeal |
| Citation | EWCA Civ 1871 |
| Keywords | |
| Health | |
R (Coughlan) v North and East Devon Health Authority EWCA Civ 1871 is a UK enterprise law case, concerning health care in the UK.
Facts
Miss Coughlan claimed she should be able to remain at Mardon House, Exeter, purpose built for her and seven others with severe disabilities. After a 1971 road traffic accident, she became tetraplegic, needing constant care. Devon HA decided it should be closed in 1996, although she had been assured before it was a ‘home for life’. The Health Authority argued Mardon House had become ‘a prohibitively expensive white elephant’ which ‘left fewer resources available for other services’.
Judgment
The Court of Appeal held there was a legitimate expectation to fair treatment, with a substantive benefit of the ‘home for life’. Frustrating the expectation would be an abuse of power. However the duty to promote health, in statute, was not a duty to ensure the service was comprehensive.
Lord Woolf MR said that the failure to keep the home open was ‘equivalent to a breach of contract in private law’. He said the following.
... the decision to move Miss Coughlan against her will and in breach of the health authority’s own promise was in the circumstances unfair. It was unfair because it frustrated her legitimate expectation of having a home for life in Mardon House.... The truth is that, while has the duty to continue to promote a comprehensive free health service and he must never, in making a decision under section 3, disregard that duty, a comprehensive health service may never, for human financial and other resource reasons, be achievable.
ECHR article 8 was also discussed.
See also
| Public health sources | |
|---|---|
| UDHR 1948 art 25 | |
| European Social Charter 1961 arts 11 and 13 | |
| ECHR 1950 arts 2, 3 and 8 | |
| National Health Service Act 2006 ss 1-1I, Sch 1A and Sch 7 | |
| NHS (Clinical Commissioning Groups) Regulations 2012 regs 11-12 | |
| Health and Social Care Act 2012 ss 75, 115-121 and 165 | |
| NHS (Procurement, Patient Choice and Competition) (No 2) Regulations 2013 regs 2-11 | |
| National Health Service (Private Finance) Act 1997 s 1 | |
| National Health Service Act 2006 ss 1A-C and 3 | |
| R (B) v Cambridge Health Authority EWCA Civ 43 | |
| R (Coughlan) v North and East Devon HA EWCA Civ 1871 | |
| R (Ann Marie Rogers) v Swindon PCT EWCA Civ 392 | |
| R (Watts) v Bedford Primary Care Trust (2006) C-372/04 | |
| National Health Service Act 2006 ss 6BB and 175 | |
| NHS (Charges to Overseas Visitors) Regulations 2015 regs 3-9 | |
| N v United Kingdom ECHR 453 | |
| see UK enterprise law |