A team from 11KBW is acting for Dr Cathy Gardner in her judicial review concerning the Government’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic in care homes. Dr Gardner’s father, Michael Gibson, died of suspected coronavirus in a care home in April.
Dr Gardner issued proceedings in the High Court on Friday 12 June, naming the Secretary of State for Health, NHS England and Public Health England as defendants. Her claim alleges that they breached duties under the Human Rights Act 1998 and the Equality Act 2010, and other public-law duties in their handling of the outbreak.
In particular, she argues that the Defendants’ introduction of a ‘discharge home today’ policy in March, which mandated urgent hospital discharges wherever possible to free up bed capacity, took no account of the particular dangers that the pandemic posed to those in care homes, into which many hospital patients were discharged, without being tested for coronavirus. She also challenges the lawfulness of a range of other policies which, taken together, failed to protect residents of care homes from the danger of infection.
The case is being crowd-funded, and contributions may be made here. More details on the background to the case can be found here. Jason Coppel KC, Joseph Barrett and Michael White are acting for Dr Gardner, instructed by Sinclairslaw.
