High Court tells Newham it acted unlawfully by breaching its own rules
Council broke rules over medical checks
An east London authority’s policy of outsourcing medical checks on housing applicants to a private company has been ruled unlawful by the High Court.
Newham Council had acted unlawfully because its housing allocation rules demand that the tests should be carried out by its own medical assessment officer rather than the firm NowMedical, to which it outsourced the role.
The successful High Court challenge was launched by a woman who shared a damp one-bedroom flat with her four children and her disabled mother. Her application to be put on a priority re-housing list was rejected. A consultant paediatrician, her mother’s GP and an environmental health officer had all submitted evidence to the council in support of her claim.
Dr Keen of NowMedical took a different view of the medical priorities and the judgement stated he advised Newham that ‘no change in her priority was called for on the evidence that had been presented to him.’
Mr Justice McCombe, who heard the case, said he appreciated the practical difficulties of making quick, humane decisions with limited resources and high demands. ‘In this case of course the law was clear, and this authority failed, I fear, to comply with it.’
He acknowledged that Now Medical regularly provided health assessments for other landlords.
Debbie Larner, head of practice at the Chartered Institute of Housing, said: ‘Policies and procedures provide the bedrock for how and why services will be delivered, ensure consistency and transparency and ultimately, leave organisations open to challenge if they are not adhered to as we have seen in this case.’
A spokesperson for Newham Council said: ‘We accept the court’s judgment. Because Newham Council’s housing allocation policy explicitly stated that all medical assessments were to be carried out by an internal assessor, this was deemed unlawful. There have been proposals to amend the policy for several months now; a suitable amendment is now in place.’
A spokesperson for NowMedical said: ‘The quotation is an extract from the judgment and not a verbatim account of what was stated by Dr Keen. It should also be noted that following this advice, Dr Keen reviewed and amended his opinion to advise that priority was applicable for this applicant.’
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