Legally speaking, the judgment in King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust v South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust & Anor [2024] EWCOP 20 (‘ King’s College’ ), given by Ms Justice Henke on 10 th April 2024, has no...
We understand that local authorities have limited budgets to meet the needs of all service users who require deputyships or appointeeships. The local authority as a public authority cannot recover the full economic cost of managing a deputyship itself, even where the service user has substantial financial means. The net result is that a constrained budget has to meet all service users’ needs, with taxpayers funding those with and without means equally. That risks the eroding of the service for all.
As a firm of solicitors, Stephensons can recover economic costs of deputyship from the service users’ resources. But crucially our fees are assessed and approved by the Court of Protection, so service users are fully protected.
The local authority reputation risk of directing deputyships to Stephensons is managed by the high degree of regulation exercised by the Court of Protection and Office of the Public Guardian.
We recognise the necessity for the local authority to recover care fees. Therefore, consistent with best interest decisions, we liquidate assets such as residential properties, efficiently, to meet care home fees. This further relieves the pressure on stretched local authority budgets.