18.60R (Green) v South West Strategic Health Authority [2008] EWHC 2576 (Admin), (2009) 12 CCLR 93
On their proper construction, the health authority’s policy guidance did correctly incorporate the ‘primary health need’ test, which it properly applied
Facts: Ms Green, who suffered from Alzheimer’s disease, and lived in care home accommodation, sought a judicial review of the health authority’s decision that she was not entitled to NHS continuing healthcare: she contended that the health authority’s eligibility criteria were flawed.
Judgment: Wyn Williams J dismissed the application for judicial review, on the ground that, read as a whole including together with a supplementary document, the eligibility criteria were lawful:
44. That being so, this case is different from Grogan. In Grogan, to repeat, Charles J decided that the published criteria did not sufficiently identify the Primary Health Care Needs Test. It was in that context that he held that the phrase ‘the nature or complexity or intensity or unpredictability of an individual’s health needs’ was insufficient guidance. Had there been an identification of the Primary Health Care Needs Test and an exposition of its content in Grogan I doubt whether Charles J would have considered the criteria before him to have been unlawful.