Public-funded bodies warned to avoid 'expensive litigation' to resolve disputes » Health » 24dash.com

The Court of Appeal today sent out a clear message to publicly-funded bodies who engage in "expensive litigation" to resolve disputes.

Lord Justice Scott Baker, one of three judges ruling in a legal conflict between a council and a primary care trust over who should pay for the care of a woman suffering from a multiple personality disorder, stressed that there were "better ways of spending public money".

He said: "There are many better ways of spending public money than arguing in the courts which of two or more publicly-funded bodies should pay for care costs where each party agrees that one or other of them must be responsible."

The judge added: "The philosophy that incurring cost does not matter provided it comes out of someone else's budget is to be discouraged."

One of the other judges, Lord Justice May, commented: "It is not satisfactory when two publicly-funded authorities engage in expensive litigation to decide which of them should pay for the care in her home of a woman whose mental and psychological conditions require constant and expensive care.

"In the end, the money for the care and the money for the litigation is all coming out of the same purse."

Their comments were made in a written judgment announcing that the court was dismissing an appeal brought by St Helens Borough Council in Merseyside arising from a November 2006 decision by Manchester Primary Care Trust in relation to the care for the woman, referred to only as PE, who is in her mid-thirties and suffers from Dissociative Identity Disorder.

Lord Justice May said the question was whether her needs "are primarily for health care or for care which a social services authority should undertake".

The Trust "upon intensive consideration" decided that PE's needs were not primarily for health care, but St Helens, which had paid for the care for a number of years, "now maintain that the care is not such that their social services department should be required to undertake it".

Lord Justice May added: "Both parties agree that one or other of them has to be responsible. There can be no gap."

PE's annual care is currently around £675,000 - she lives in her own home with 24-hour care.

Lord Justice May announced that the appeal by St Helens was being dismissed on the one ground before the court.

The judges rejected the submission that the court should decide for itself the "substantive" question whether PE's care needs were the responsibility of St Helens or the PCT.

Lord Justice May said it now remained for St Helens to decide, "in the face of hitherto discouraging provisional judicial indications", whether to pursue its case on other grounds.

He pointed out that there had been two developments since the November 2006 decision.

The first was that the PCT "has for a long time now been proceeding, very slowly it has to be said, towards a further assessment of PE's care needs".

He added: "I understand that this is in the context of a fresh multi-disciplinary team recommendation to the effect that PE's care needs are indeed primarily health care needs."

Secondly, a new national framework for NHS continuing care was introduced from October 1, 2007, requiring local authorities and PCTs to agree a dispute resolution procedure "which would not in the first instance require proceedings in court".

Lord Justice May said there had also been a "recent complication" in PE's case, as the Secretary of State had decided that she was "ordinarily resident in Manchester, not St Helens".

He added: "Upon the assumption that the PCT's decision under challenge is upheld, this would mean that Manchester City Council is responsible for her future care unless of course the Secretary of State's decision were to be successfully challenged."

The interests of PE have been represented by the Official Solicitor, said the judge, adding: "The Official Solicitor is understandably concerned on her behalf at the disturbing effect of protracted litigation."