Protecting disabled people’s right to live independently (Davey v Oxfordshire Council)
A severely disabled man had his care package cut by the local council. It meant that he would lose a team of carers who had been supporting him to live independently for 20 years. We intervened to support his legal challenge that the decision broke equality and human rights laws and breached the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
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.
Protecting the right of disabled people to stay in their own home (2) (EHRC v a Clinical Commissioning Group)
NHS Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) are responsible for planning and commissioning healthcare in their local areas. This CCG had a policy 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 breached human rights laws and began legal proceedings against the CCG.
Ending unlawful detention of adults with incapacity (NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde)
After we brought a judicial review against NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde (NHSGGC) and HC One Oval Ltd, the owner of a chain of care homes, the NHSGGC stopped placing patients in two care homes in Glasgow without legal authority and a legal agreement was reached.
Helping disabled tenants to make reasonable adjustments to their homes (Andrew Smailes, Stacey Poyner-Smailes and Clewer Court Residents Ltd )
A disabled woman needed to make reasonable adjustments to her home, but because she was renting, they were refused by the landlord. We successfully funded this case to clarify whether a term in the lease prohibiting alterations is contrary to the Equality Act.
Challenging the ‘two-child limit’ rule (R (on the application of SC and CB and their children) v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions)
The Welfare Reform and Work Act 2016 provides that child tax credit and its replacement universal credit will not be payable to any 3rd or subsequent children in a family born after 6th April 2017 (subject to some exceptions). This is known as the ‘two child rule’.
SC and CB each had a baby after 6th April 2017 and do not receive any tax credits for those children.