Protecting the right of disabled people to stay in their own home (1) (EHRC v 13 Clinical Commissioning Groups)
NHS Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) are responsible for planning and commissioning healthcare in their local areas. A number of CCGs had policies which limited spending on continuing healthcare. It meant that disabled people with ongoing health needs risked being moved from their homes into residential care against their wishes. We believe this breaches human rights laws and began legal proceedings against the 13 CCGs with the most overly restrictive policies.
Challenging a Council's housing list policy (R (TW) and R (Gullu) v London Borough of Hillingdon)
Hillingdon Council’s housing rules said that a person must have lived in the area for at least ten years before they could apply for a house. The council refused two people, a refugee who had been given permission to stay in the UK and an Irish Traveller, on these grounds. We saw this as discriminatory and we intervened in their cases in the Administrative Court and the Court of Appeal.
Challenging the two-child limit on the basis of discrimination (R ( SC & Ors) v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions)
Tax credits are designed to help with the cost of bringing up a family; but families can only claim credits for the first two children. The claimant in this case is a mother of three children, she cannot take the contraceptive pill because it interferes with other medication she takes and she does not agree with abortion. We believe that the two-child limit discriminates against families like this claimant, so we intervened in her case.