Care homes 'can evict elderly residents' - Telegraph

Extract:

"Hundreds of thousands of elderly people in private care homes are vulnerable to eviction, abuse and neglect after a House of Lords ruling that they are not covered by human rights laws, according to campaigners.

In a bitterly-fought landmark case five deeply divided Law Lords ruled by a majority of 3-2, that an 84-year-old woman with Alzheimer's disease threatened with eviction from her care home, did not enjoy the protection of the Human Rights Act given to residents of local authority run care homes.

The decision could affect up to 300,000 residents throughout the country who have been placed in private homes by their local authorities.

Nine out of ten care homes in England and Wales are now run by private firms.

Lawyers for the unnamed woman had argued that her threatened eviction from a private home, because of an alleged "irreconcilable breakdown" between her family and its management, was a violation of her right to family life.

But, the Law Lords ruled that a private home was not exercising a public function when it care for people referred to it by a council, and therefore was not bound by the Act.

The civil rights group Liberty condemned the ruling saying urgent legislation was now needed to change the Act to prevent local authorities from "contracting out of dignity for Britain's elderly".
Help the Aged said it was "a sickening blow to older people and their families everywhere" and that it left "vulnerable older people open to neglect, abuse and eviction, without redress through the Human Rights Act"."

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