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KembaraXtra-Case Law-R v Central Birmingham HA ex p Walker & R v Secretary of State for Social Services ex p Walker (1987) - Resource Allocation & Judicial Review
Key Takeaways
1. Hesitancy to Intervene
A public body's decision (including resource allocation) can be challenged if it is:
Key Takeaways
- Main Principle: Patients can challenge resource allocation decisions made by health authorities through judicial review, BUT the courts are very hesitant to intervene.
- High Threshold: Courts will only intervene if the resource allocation decision is "Wednesbury unreasonable" (irrational).
- Limited Intervention: Courts acknowledge that health authorities must make difficult decisions with limited budgets, and they are not equipped to make these decisions themselves.
- Patient: Premature baby needing heart surgery.
- Problem: Surgery repeatedly cancelled due to nurse shortage.
- Legal Action: Mother sought judicial review of the Health Authority's decision.
- Initial Ruling: Judge found no illegality or procedural flaws in the decision.
- The Court of Appeal will not substitute its own judgment unless the allocation was Wednesbury unreasonable.
- The court acknowledged the existence of jurisdiction to intervene.
- Leave for judicial review was refused in this specific case.
1. Hesitancy to Intervene
- Sir John Donaldson (ex p Walker): The jurisdiction to review resource allocation should be used "extremely sparingly."
- R v Cambridge DHA ex p B (1995): Refusal to fund chemotherapy for a child was lawful.
- Sir Thomas Bingham MR: Courts cannot make judgments about how to allocate limited budgets to maximize patient benefit.
A public body's decision (including resource allocation) can be challenged if it is:
- (a) Illegal: Violates the law.
- (b) Procedurally Flawed: Improper process was followed (e.g., R v Secretary of State for Health ex p Pfizer (1999), where policy change should be made via policy changes, not an advisory).
- (c) Irrational: "Wednesbury unreasonable."
- Associated Provincial Picture Houses v Wednesbury Corp (1948): A decision "so unreasonable that no reasonable authority could ever have come to it."
- Council of Civil Service Unions v Minister for the Civil Service (1985) (Lord Diplock): "So outrageous in its defiance of logic or of accepted moral standards that no sensible person who had applied his mind to the question to be decided could have arrived at it."
- Extremely high standard to meet.
- Some argue that resource allocation is therefore "non-justiciable" (not suitable for judicial review).
- The Human Rights Act 1998 may shift the test towards "proportionality" (more flexible than "irrationality").
- Judicial Review: A process where courts review the lawfulness of decisions made by public bodies.
- Resource Allocation: Decisions about how to distribute limited resources (e.g., healthcare funding).
- Wednesbury Unreasonableness: The legal test for irrationality in judicial review (very difficult to prove).
- Non-Justiciable: A matter that is not suitable for a court to decide.
- Proportionality: A legal principle that requires a fair balance between the means used and the aim pursued.
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