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.
