Case Law: Nursing

This is a case response based upon an article describing the suspension of a Nurse from her job because she offered to pray for an elderly patient. While there are many legal and ethical issues that could be looked into, the focus of this case response is to look specifically at the operation of equality legislation and human rights legislation, and the difficulty that social workers and other service providers may have in balancing their obligations and applying them to professional practice. It is acknowledged that some issues faced in this case may be specific to the healthcare profession, however in any event, it is argued here that many general principles would be relevant to social workers and other providers in general, and therefore this is an important case to be analysed in this essay.
The Duty to Safeguard Adults
Adult social care is a huge area of law that is governed by a large number of different legislations too large to cover in this case response (For examples see Brayne and Carr 2013, Chapter 12). In addition it is generally widely accepted amongst practitioners that there is a general duty imposed on public bodies involved in health and community care to safeguard adults, especially those categorised as vulnerable adults from abuse (See Brammer 2010: 496-498). Exactly how abuse is defined is ambiguous in UK law (In UK law abuse is defined in multiple and diverse ways} and as a result there is no clear legal definition which would be helpful for caseworkers (Brammer 2010). That said, Brammer (2010) has helpfully referred to guidance issued by the Department of Health (Department of Health 2000) ‘No Secrets’ which helpfully sets out certain guidelines. This document helpfully sets out certain categories of abuse: ...

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E v UK [2003] 1FLR348
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R v Derby City Council ex parte Johns (2011) EWHC 375