12/06/2025

Bevan Brittan provides high quality, comprehensive advice to the NHS, independent healthcare sector and local authorities. This update contains brief details of recent Government publications, legislation, cases and other developments relevant to those involved in health and social care work, both in the NHS, independent sector and local authorities which have been published in the last month. 

Training Events 

Housing

Acute and emergency care

Information sharing / data

Children/young people

Integrated Care

Clinical Risk/Patient Safety

Mental Health

Digital Health

Social Care

Employment/HR

General

Finance

Training Events

Health Inequalities

 

 

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Bevan Brittan Free Training Events 

There is no charge for any of the events listed below

Webinars  
These are internal hour long lunch time training sessions.  You can sign up to watch the training sessions remotely via our webinar facility. Please contact Claire Bentley

Procedural Tactics: How to have the upper hand | Tuesday 17 June 2025 | 12:30 - 13:30. Join us for this session where Rebecca De Haro will be joined by Francesca O’Neill from Deka Chambers. Francesca will consider Civil Procedure Rules changes and case decisions that will impact on handling clinical negligence cases, Part 36 offers, and the Service of Proceedings.

Managing Mental Health issues among the Workforce. Tuesday 24 June 2025 | 10:00 - 11:00 Managing staff experiencing poor mental health requires sensitivity, understanding, and a proactive approach. This session will be led by a team of specialists in Safeguarding, Data Protection and Employment Law.

Section 117 for Children and Young People. Thursday 26 June 2025 | 12:30 - 13:30. Join us for this session with Anna Davies and Kathryn Stewart from Bevan Brittan, who will present on the key issues and complexities of Section 117 for children and young people. 

Please note that registration for each webinar will close one hour before the webinar starts, so please do ensure you have booked your place in advance to guarantee attendance.  

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Acute and emergency care

News

Nuffield Trust response to latest NHS performance stats

Bevan Brittan Updates

Information Sharing to Tackle Violence: The Recording of Data in Emergency Departments to help Reduce Serious Violence - Jane Bennett and Julia Jones

How we can help

If you wish to discuss any queries you may have around acute and emergency issues please contact Claire Bentley.

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Children and young people

Publications/Guidance

Multi-agency working. The Department for Education (DfE) has added new materials to support ‘Working together to safeguard children’, the statutory guidance on multi-agency working in England. These include an illustrated guide, an animated video and a toolkit of resources designed for practitioners to share and use with children, young people and their families.

Putting young people at the heart of care. This report features four case studies demonstrating how trusts are successfully improving services for children and young people across a variety of sectors: delivering mental health support to children and young people in the community; collaborating at neighbourhood level for the benefit of children and young people; improving access to care through digital interventions; and using co-production to improve services for children and young people.

The short- and medium-term effects of Sure Start on children's outcomes. This report finds that Sure Start – one of England’s biggest early years programmes – generated widespread and long-lasting benefits for children. It improved educational outcomes and health, and reduced school absences and less severe special educational needs and disabilities (SEND).

10 years of children's public health in local government: a series of interviews
To mark 10 years of children's public health being back within in local government, the Local Government Association has commissioned a series of interviews with thought leaders from across the sector on their thoughts on the impact that has been made, and what more can be done to support children.

Safeguarding practice reviews. The Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel has published a new report exploring learning and improvement from serious child safeguarding incidents and the local child safeguarding practice review process in England. A review of the literature and policy review was followed by interviews with safeguarding partnerships, families and professionals. Findings include: there is minimal infrastructure to support safeguarding professionals and independent reviewers to enact a systems approach, which focuses on a deeper understanding of why professionals have acted in the way they have. The Panel sets out six priorities for change including actions for the government, safeguarding partnerships and the Panel.

Fixing the foundations: the case for investing in children's health. This analysis, following individuals born in a single week in 1970 throughout their lives, finds that mental health problems at age 10 have significant implications 40 years on. Children with severe mental and behavioural problems are 85% more likely to have symptoms of depression at age 51, and 68% more likely to have a long-term condition that impacts their ability to work. The IPPR argues that the findings underscore the long-term impacts of untreated mental or behavioural issues, and highlight the urgent need for early intervention to prevent soaring demand on the NHS, council services and social security system. 

Family courts. The National Audit Office (NAO) has published a report reviewing the government’s approach to improving family court services for children in England and Wales. The report highlights concerns around the timeliness of family courts and discusses how delays in resolving cases can lead to increased risk of harm to children. The report also finds that responsibilities for family justice are dispersed across several government bodies, leading to weak accountability for overall performance and a lack of joined-up data. Recommendations include: an overall strategy for family justice improvements including clear and measurable objectives for better serving children and families; and a review of the available support for families through court proceedings. 

Improving family court services for children. Family justice is concerned with keeping children safe and helping families resolve disputes. It includes cases on protecting children, who children live with and how they spend time with their family, as well as divorce, adoption and associated financial arrangements. 

Bevan Brittan Updates

Inequalities for children in poor housing - Neil Brand and Julia Jones

Bevan Brittan Events

Section 117 for Children and Young People. Thursday 26 June 2025 | 12:30 - 13:30. Join us for this session with Anna Davies and Kathryn Stewart from Bevan Brittan, who will present on the key issues and complexities of Section 117 for children and young people. 

How we can help

If you wish to discuss any queries you may have around children please contact Deborah Jeremiah

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Clinical Risk / Patient Safety

Publications/Guidance 

Bold action: tackling inequalities in maternity care. This briefing summarises the findings from a series of interviews with trust leaders in which they described the barriers and enablers to improvement in maternity services, with a particular focus on health inequalities. Drawing on these conversations, and NHS Providers’ longer-term work in this area, the briefing sets out a number of calls to action. These look across improving access and preventive care, developing the workforce, working with women and communities, addressing race inequalities, streamlining reporting requirements and unlocking resource. 

Patient safety health care inequalities reduction framework. This framework sets out five key principles to reduce patient safety health care inequalities across the NHS. It outlines opportunities that local teams and integrated care boards can implement, as well as the work NHS England is doing nationally to support and enable this. These principles align with the aims of NHS England’s Patient Safety Strategy and Core20PLUS5 approach for adults and for children and young people to address health care inequalities.

Mental health inpatient settings: overarching report of investigations directed by the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care. In June 2023 the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care announced that HSSIB would undertake a series of investigations focused on mental health inpatient settings. This overarching report brings together and explores cross-cutting patient safety risks across the individual investigations.

Maternal mental health. Research in Practice has published three videos on maternal mental health and pre-birth work. The videos look at the needs, including mental health challenges, that parents involved in pre-birth work commonly present with; the importance of embedding trauma-informed approaches in pre-birth practice; and the impact of a policy change around separation at birth on families in one local area.

DHSC announces national rollout of maternity brain injury prevention programme. The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) has announced the national implementation of the Avoiding Brain Injury in Childbirth (ABC) programme, scheduled to begin in September 2025. The programme, developed through a pilot across 12 NHS maternity units, aims to enhance identification of foetal distress during labour and improve emergency response protocols. The initiative forms part of the government's £57m investment in Start for Life services and follows collaborative development by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, Royal College of Midwives, and The Healthcare Improvement Studies Institute. The programme intends to standardise clinical practice across NHS maternity units to achieve outcomes comparable to the top 20% of trusts. 

Government Response to the Infected Blood Inquiry. A Cabinet Office Command Paper details the Government's full response to the Infected Blood Inquiry's May 2024 report, highlighting progress delivering on the recommendations which cover: setting up the compensation scheme; recognising and remembering the dead; learning from the Inquiry; preventing future harm to patients; ending a defensive culture in Civil Service and government; monitoring liver damage for people who were infected with Hepatitis C; patient safety with respect to blood transfusions; finding the undiagnosed; protecting the safety of haemophilia care; giving patients a voice; responding to calls for a public inquiry; and giving effect to the Inquiry's recommendations. Recognising the suffering of victims, the Government accepts all 12 recommendations, with some accepted in full, and others accepted in principle. Progress includes nearly £100 million so far in compensation to victims and over £1.2 billion in interim payments, committing £500,000 to advocacy charities, and greater support for patients with liver damage. The Inquiry has set out its intention to publish a further report on compensation, and the Government remains committed to cooperating with the Inquiry.

DHSC Annual Report and Accounts 2023-24: Twenty-Fifth Report of Session 2024-25. In a report on the Department of Health and Social Care's (DHSC) Accounts 2023-24, the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) underlines its concern at the impact the uncertainty following the abolition of NHS England's (NHSE) may have on patients and staff. It notes that following the Government's announcement that it would abolish NHSE and centralise its functions into the DHSC, the Government has still not set out how this decision will impact key services and targets to improve patient care. Other areas where the Government was unable to provide clarity to the PAC's inquiry included: the lack of a clear plan for how DHSC and NHSE will achieve significant headcount reductions, and the costs involved; how the reductions fit in with the wider 10 Year Health Plan for the NHS; how savings made from reducing NHSE staff costs help frontline services; and how the institutional knowledge of NHSE would be preserved following its abolition. In the area of clinical negligence, PAC expresses concern that £58.2 billion has been set aside to cover the potential cost of clinical negligence events in the latest accounts and that 19% of money awarded to claimants in 2023-24 was paid to their lawyers, on top of the fees payable for the Government Legal Team.

Medical certificate of cause of death (MCCD): guidance for medical practitioners. Guidance for medical practitioners completing a medical certificate of cause of death in England and Wales.

Journal articles

Groundbreaking legal ruling on the duty of care to relatives of patient victims of clinical negligence - John Mead

Fatigue and sleepiness of clinicians due to hours of service: A Making Healthcare Safer IV rapid response review - Molly Kilcullen

News

New NHS programme to reduce brain injury in childbirth. Government to roll out the Avoiding Brain Injuries in Childbirth (ABC) programme nationally. 

Bevan Brittan Updates

Prescribing with Precision: What Nurses and Midwives Must Know in 2025 - Julie Charlton

Information Sharing to Tackle Violence: The Recording of Data in Emergency Departments to help Reduce Serious Violence - Jane Bennett and Julia Jones

Bevan Brittan Events

Procedural Tactics: How to have the upper hand | Tuesday 17 June 2025 | 12:30 - 13:30. Join us for this session where Rebecca De Haro will be joined by Francesca O’Neill from Deka Chambers. Francesca will consider Civil Procedure Rules changes and case decisions that will impact on handling clinical negligence cases, Part 36 offers, and the Service of Proceedings.

How we can help

We are working with clients on formulating policies and making it easier to balance treatment with finite resources. We are helping with social care policies and day to day activities such as contact and isolation, human rights issues and life/death decisions. We are working on notifications of harm and death, RIDDOR, CQC compliance, judicial review, infection control law and grappling with the new regulations and guidance. For more information click here

If you wish to discuss any clinical risk or patient safety issues please contact Joanne Easterbrook or Daniel Morris.

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Digital Health

Publications/guidance

More than just hype: how emerging AI use is assisting health and social care. Pritesh Mistry sets out how artificial intelligence is currently being developed, tested and used within health and care.

Cost of digitalising the NHS and social care. A shift from analogue to digital is at the heart of the government’s ambitions for NHS reform in England. The forthcoming NHS 10 Year Plan and the 2025 Spending Review, as well as the Casey Commission into social care, offer an opportunity to achieve a step-change in digitisation, improving productivity, patient experience and outcomes, and staff experience. This research report, written by PA Consulting, finds that significant investment will be needed in the UK over the next five years and beyond. It sets out three key actions for government and policy-makers.

Curb your enthusiasm: what does the evidence tell us about using AI in radiology diagnostics?
With hopes for the far-reaching impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on health care remaining as strong as ever, the NIHR Rapid Service Evaluation Team have conducted a review of the literature on the role of AI in radiology diagnostics. Emma Dodsworth and Rachel Lawrence describe the three findings from the work that stood out the most. 

How we can help

If you wish to discuss any queries you may have around Digital Health please contact Daniel Morris.

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Employment/HR  

Publications/guidance

NHS Pay Review Body: thirty-eighth report 2025. This report sets out the NHS Pay Review Body’s analysis of evidence provided by relevant organisations, and makes observations on the pay of NHS staff paid under Agenda for Change for 2025. 

Review Body on Doctors’ and Dentists’ Remuneration: fifty-third report 2025. This report contains recommendations and observations from the Review Body on Doctors’ and Dentists’ Remuneration on doctors’ and dentists’ pay in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Unreciprocated care: why internationally educated nursing staff are leaving the UK. Internationally educated nursing staff have been making a critical contribution to UK health and care systems for the better part of a century, but continue to face challenges every step of the way to becoming a nurse in the UK. This report explores those challenges using research findings of an RCN survey of more than 3,000 international nursing staff and qualitative insights from 25 in-depth interviews.

Resident doctor pay: how do different methods affect how pay changes appear? With a new pay offer for NHS staff announced this month, this analysis looks at real-terms changes to resident (junior) doctors’ pay. 

Very senior managers (VSM) pay framework. This framework is designed to support the NHS in securing the best senior leaders, with the right skills and experience, to deliver exceptional care and services for patients and their local communities. It applies to all integrated care boards and NHS provider trusts, and seeks to strengthen the link between reward and performance outcomes, increase transparency, and offer flexibility to attract talented candidates to the most challenging roles. It was jointly produced by NHS England and the Department of Health and Social Care.

Independent review of physician associates and anaesthesia associates. Information about the independent review of the physician associate and anaesthesia associate professions, led by Professor Gillian Leng CBE.

Fake nurse crackdown to boost public safety. The Government has announced that legislation will be laid before Parliament to introduce a criminal offence for people who are not qualified as a nurse but use the title to mislead the public. The measures will ensure that only those will relevant qualifications and registration can describe themselves as a nurse. Currently, anyone, including those struck off by the Nursing and Midwifery Council for serious misconduct or criminal convictions, can use the term nurse, as only the title registered nurse is protected in law. Exemptions will be made for relevant professions, such as veterinary nurses, dental nurses and nursery nurses, where the title nurse is used in a legitimate manner

News

Update on arrangements for Code of Practice consultation.

Nearly £1 billion for NHS frontline after agency spend crackdown. Government crackdown on rip-off temporary staffing agencies delivers unprecedented savings, as NHS trusts are urged to eradicate agency spending altogether.

Overseas recruitment for care workers to end. International recruitment for care workers will end under plans announced by Home Secretary Yvette Cooper. 

Bevan Brittan Updates

Employment Eye – May 2025 - Sarah Lamont 

Modern Slavery – New guidance and requirements for ensuring transparency in supply chains - Louise Mansfield

Bevan Brittan Events

Managing Mental Health issues among the Workforce. Tuesday 24 June 2025 | 10:00 - 11:00 Managing staff experiencing poor mental health requires sensitivity, understanding, and a proactive approach. This session will be led by a team of specialists in Safeguarding, Data Protection and Employment Law.

How we can help

We can offer support and advice on managing many workforce issues including flexing your workforce to respond to the pandemic, managing bank staff, redeployment, vulnerable groups, sick pay, leave options, supporting staff well-being, presenteeism, remote and home working, through FAQs, helpline or policy guidance and practical day to day advice.  

If you wish to discuss any employment issues generally please contact Jodie Sinclair, Alastair Currie, Oonagh Sharma, James Gutteridge, Andrew Uttley, Joanna Burrows and Lee Carroll.

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Finance 

Publications/guidance

Tight budgets and tough choices: the reality of an NHS living within its financial means. The NHS has faced financial pressure for more than a decade, but the signals of financial distress across the NHS have grown in recent years, and the current financial pressure on the NHS appears to be different. This matters because financial pressure can have a direct impact on patients and their care.

The NHS finance function in 2024: England. Results of the NHS finance staff census and staff attitudes survey. The aim of this report is to develop a better understanding of the make-up of the NHS finance function and how it has changed over time to help understand the qualifications, career path, morale and development needs of NHS finance staff. Since the last census in 2022, there has been minimal change in the number of core NHS organisations. Overall, NHS finance staff numbers have remained fairly stable, with an overall 2% increase in NHS finance staff headcount. 

How we can help

For more information on issues around finance, please contact Claire Bentley

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Health Inequalities 

Publications/Guidance

Bold action: tackling inequalities in maternity care. This briefing summarises the findings from a series of interviews with trust leaders in which they described the barriers and enablers to improvement in maternity services, with a particular focus on health inequalities. Drawing on these conversations, and NHS Providers’ longer-term work in this area, the briefing sets out a number of calls to action. These look across improving access and preventive care, developing the workforce, working with women and communities, addressing race inequalities, streamlining reporting requirements and unlocking resource. 

Patient safety health care inequalities reduction framework. This framework sets out five key principles to reduce patient safety health care inequalities across the NHS. It outlines opportunities that local teams and integrated care boards can implement, as well as the work NHS England is doing nationally to support and enable this. These principles align with the aims of NHS England’s Patient Safety Strategy and Core20PLUS5 approach for adults and for children and young people to address health care inequalities.

Health inequalities in health protection report 2025. Health inequalities in health protection have a high human cost across people and places. They have a wider societal impact, including on health services and economic productivity. The causes of and solutions to addressing health inequalities are often systemic, structural and complex. This report sets out the extent of these health inequalities. It also sets out how the UK Health Security Agency aims to make health protection fair.

The relationship between NHS waiting lists and health-related benefit claims. The number of people claiming health-related benefits in England has risen substantially in recent years, coinciding with a pronounced increase in NHS waiting lists and waiting times. It is sometimes suggested that these two phenomena might be linked. This report finds no evidence that rising waiting lists for pre-planned hospital treatment have been a major driver of increases in the receipt of health-related benefits by working-age adults since the start of the pandemic.  

How we can help

We have a multidisciplinary team advising NHS commissioners and providers on all aspects of tackling health inequalities, ranging from:

  • advising on the new legal framework and compliance with the relevant statutory duties, particularly in the context of service reconfiguration;
  • addressing workforce inequalities;
  • taking action on patient safety to reduce health inequalities;
  • the role of the Care Quality Commission in tackling health inequalities; and
  • lessons to be learnt from the Covid-19 pandemic.

If you wish to discuss any queries you may have around health inequalities please contact Julia Jones. 

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Housing 

Bevan Brittan Updates

Inequalities for children in poor housing - Neil Brand and Julia Jones

How we can help

If you wish to discuss any queries you may have around housing please contact Julia Jones or George Riach  

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Independent Health 

Publications/guidance

Abortion: procedures for approval of independent providers. Procedures for approval of independent sector providers of treatment for termination of pregnancy.

How we can help

For more information on issues around independent health, please contact Tim Hodgetts or Julie Charlton

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Information sharing/data 

Bevan Brittan Updates

Information Sharing to Tackle Violence: The Recording of Data in Emergency Departments to help Reduce Serious Violence - Jane Bennett and Julia Jones

How we can help

Our specialist team brings a unique combination of experience and skill from across the health, social care, and local authority sectors to help you meet the wide ranging challenges faced organisationally as you deal with the various and complex legislation in respect of information law.  That team understands the practical way those legal frameworks impact the range of issues faced, as well as the diverse nature of both public and regulatory expectation in relation to “personal data”, “data protection”, “freedom of information”, “access to health records” and wider “information governance”.  As well as assisting your organisation in dealing with challenging requests for disclosure, we can also help to provide strategic advice in relation to policy and information security, as well as bespoke organisational training on key legal issues.

If you wish to discuss any information law and / or governance issues facing your organisation, and how we may help, please contact Jane Bennett

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Integrated Care

Publications/Guidance

Model ICB Blueprint. NHS England has shared the first version of the Model ICB Blueprint with integrated care board leaders. The document is intended to help ICBs produce plans by the end of May to reduce their running costs by 50%. It sets out an initial vision for ICBs as strategic commissioners, and the role they will play in realising the ambitions of the 10 Year Health Plan. This briefing provides a summary of the blueprint document, highlighting the aspects most relevant to trusts, and includes NHS Providers’ view.

Place-based partnerships: challenges and opportunities. Place-based partnerships in integrated care systems aim to tackle health inequalities and improve care. This report, commissioned by the Department of Health and Social Care, explores the key factors for success, including accountability, collaborative leadership and resources.

High Impact Change Model: using data and intelligence for whole system decision support. The HICM is designed to support local health and social care system leaders to work together to embed and improve data-driven decision making at all levels, resulting in the delivery of better neighbourhood health outcomes. 

How we can help

If you wish to discuss any queries you may have around integrated care, please contact Anna Davies.

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Mental Health 

Publications/Guidance 

Health and social care support for people with dementia. This is a report on the experiences of individuals with dementia interacting with health and social care services in England, and how these services are responding. The CQC will use the findings in this report – alongside working closely with people with lived experience, charities and support organisations, and wide-ranging stakeholders with dementia expertise – to develop its dementia strategy. This work will include producing guidance for providers on how to best care for people with dementia throughout health and social care.

Mental Health Bill: call for evidence. The Public Bill Committee seeks written evidence to inform its line-by-line scrutiny of the Mental Health Bill 2024-25 on 9 June 2025. The Bill would amend the Mental Health Act 1983. Changes proposed in the Bill include: ensuring that detention and compulsory treatment are only undertaken when necessary, and providing for more frequent reviews and appeals; limiting the length of time that people with autism or a learning disability can be detained under the Act; and removing police stations and prisons from the list of "places of safety" in the Act to which those with a mental disorder can be removed and detained. Comments by 17.00 on 26 June 2025.

Legislative Scrutiny: Mental Health Bill: Third Report of Session 2024-25. A Joint Committee on Human Rights report on its legislative scrutiny of the Mental Health Bill 2024-25, which would make substantial changes to the Mental Health Act 1983 (MHA), focuses on the areas of the Bill which raise human rights concerns or could be improved to provide enhanced protection for human rights. The Committee welcomes the amendment to prevent autistic people and people with learning disabilities from being detained for treatment on the basis of their autism or learning disabilities alone, but notes concerns about a lack of effective support in the community. It welcomes the Government's assurance that the change will not come into force until there are strong community services in place. Noting the Bill does not address the longstanding issue of the complexity of the interface between the MHA and deprivation of liberty under the Mental Capacity Act 2005, the Committee calls on the Government to carry out an urgent review of this issue and to provide clarity. Further it argues for equity to be added as a guiding principle in the Bill.

Mental Health Bill [HL] 2024-25: Research briefing. A House of Commons Library briefing provides background to the Mental Health Bill 2024-25 and an overview of its main provisions ahead of its second reading on 19 May 2025. The Bill would amend the Mental Health Act 1983, which provides the legal framework for the compulsory detention, assessment and treatment of people who have a mental disorder and are considered at risk of harm to themselves or others. The Bill aims to: strengthen the voice of patients subject to the Act; add statutory weight to patients' rights to be involved in planning for their care and in choices about treatment; increase the scrutiny of detention to ensure it is only used when necessary and only for as long as necessary; and limit how the Act can be used to detain autistic people and people with a learning disability.

Mental health inpatient settings: overarching report of investigations directed by the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care. This overarching report brings together and explores cross-cutting patient safety risks across the individual investigations (the investigations). 

Bevan Brittan Events

Managing Mental Health issues among the Workforce. Tuesday 24 June 2025 | 10:00 - 11:00 Managing staff experiencing poor mental health requires sensitivity, understanding, and a proactive approach. This session will be led by a team of specialists in Safeguarding, Data Protection and Employment Law.

Section 117 for Children and Young People. Thursday 26 June 2025 | 12:30 - 13:30. Join us for this session with Anna Davies and Kathryn Stewart from Bevan Brittan, who will present on the key issues and complexities of Section 117 for children and young people. 

How we can help

We are experts in advising commissioners, providers and care co-ordinators on the relevant legal frameworks. We deal with complex issues such as deprivation of liberty, state involvement, use of CCTV monitoring, seclusion, physical restraint and covert medication. We can help providers with queries about admission and detention, consent to treatment, forensic service users, transfers, leave, discharge planning and hearings. We can advise commissioners on all matters concerning commissioning responsibility, liability and disputes. For more information click here

If you wish to discuss any mental health issues facing your organisation please contact Hannah Taylor or Simon Lindsay 

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Social Care  

Publications/Guidance 

Adult social care funding pressures: 2023–35. This analysis projects the costs of meeting growing demand for adult social care in England and making some improvements to people’s care up to 2034/35. It estimates the additional funding needed for social care under three scenarios: to meet growing demand for social care and cover rising costs to employers; to meet demand, cover rising costs and improve access to care; and to meet demand, cover rising costs, improve access and boost pay. It concludes that wider changes are needed to improve the care system, including funding reform to provide people with fairer and more generous state protection against care costs.

Independent commission into adult social care: terms of reference. The government has published the terms of reference for Baroness Casey of Blackstock’s independent commission into adult social care. This commission will form part of the first steps towards delivering a national care service. The commission should start a national conversation about what adult social care should deliver for citizens, and build consensus with the public on how best to meet the current and future needs of the population.

Delayed discharges: why it’s hard to say how many are due to social care capacity We don’t know how many delayed discharges are due to lack of social care capacity, say Simon Bottery and Sarah Arnold, and that’s because we stopped counting.

How we can help

For ways in which we can help with Social Care issues click here.

If you wish to discuss any queries you may have around social care please contact Claire Bentley.

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General

Publications/Guidance 

What is the proposed WHO Pandemic Preparedness Treaty? The WHO is negotiating a treaty on pandemic preparedness. The briefing outlines what has been proposed, how it relates to the International Health Regulations, where negotiations are up to, and what comes next.

Diverging paths: how other countries have designed and implemented assisted dying. What can the UK learn from other countries that have legalised assisted dying? This long read explores assisted dying policies across 15 jurisdictions in 9 countries, highlighting practical and operational differences in implementation, and how these systems have evolved.

SIGN UP FOR PUBLICATIONS

If you would like to sign up for any of our Bevan Brittan publications including this Health and Care Update click here.

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