Terminally ill patients are being supplied with special cards warning doctors not to place them on a controversial death pathway. The cards come as a result of a mounting backlash against overuse of the Liverpool Care Pathway which enables medical staff to withhold fluid and drugs from a patient while they are heavily sedated, speeding …
Regular checks on doctors are to take place by the end of 2012 after the General Medical Council announced its decision to introduce the process of assessing doctors’ skills. Annual appraisals will take place for all doctors in the UK and this will feed into an assessment every five years. As long as there are …
A great deal of public attention has focussed on the introduction in England of a universal system of deferred payments for residential care which, it is proposed, will take effect from April 2015. However, an area that has received limited media coverage is the less sensational commitment to improving the information available to support people …
Services for vulnerable children are set for a major overhaul which will see the role of health services, police, probation and local authority services come in for closer inspection. At present, unannounced child protection inspections are carried out by Ofsted, but these only scrutinise in depth the performance of the local authority. Inspection of the …
An investigation by BBC London has highlighted the need for the General Medical Council (GMC) to clampdown on how doctors prescribe Botox. An undercover nurse secretly filmed a doctor teaching what have been described as “wrong and unacceptable” practices to nurses during a Botox training session. The doctor in question was secretly filmed suggesting that, …
Ban on Botox prescriptions over the phone and internet Read More »
The government have not fully committed to a cap on care costs for the elderly and disabled in England, saying they need to consider cheaper options first due to the current economic climate. Ministers revealed funding ideas including a higher cap or asking people to pay a fee to opt in to the system. The …
Doctors have been told to report concerns about child abuse to the General Medical Council. The GMC claims that high-profile cases where doctors have been accused of giving misleading evidence in child protection cases and a fear of complaints by parents were preventing doctors from raising the alarm. The GMC will issue new guidance highlighting …
In our article published in the May 2012 edition of Healthcare Business, we considered the requirements surrounding mental capacity assessments under the Mental Capacity Act 2005 (“the MCA”). This article looks at best interests decision-making where the service user is judged to lack capacity to make the decision in question. As with all issues of …
The use of restraint in children’s homes has long been a contentious issue. Whilst most people concede that restraint is necessary to some degree in homes caring for children with challenging behaviour, children’s homes must ensure they use restraint correctly and within the bounds of the law. We outline and explore the most recent updates …
June saw yet another barrage of criticism against the social care sector with the publication of CQC’s report into learning disability services. The report was published at a time of growing conventional wisdom that people will be better off when they are moved out of large residential settings to smaller supported housing settings. This is …
Care Agenda: Protecting Residents from Inappropriate Moves to Supported Housing Read More »
Ridouts is a team of specialist health and social care lawyers, providing dedicated legal advice for care homes, GP practices, children’s homes, dental practices, domiciliary and home care agencies, supported and independent living services and both private and NHS hospitals.
info@ridout-law.com • +44 (0) 207 317 0340
7-10 Chandos Street, W1G 9DQ, London
