Sunderland City Council, R (on the application of) v South Tyneside Council

For Mental Health Act 1983 section 117, responsibility for after-care ordinarily rests with one local social services authority, identified by the patient’s residence. Residence has its ordinary meaning, adjusted by the statutory context. Compulsory detention cannot itself make the detaining hospital’s area the patient’s residence. The question is factual and requires an overall evaluation, including voluntariness, settled purpose, the regular order of the patient’s life, and the purpose and circumstances of the stay. Temporary presence is assessed qualitatively, not merely by duration. A short-term hospital placement, closely associated with the force of circumstances and disrupting the patient’s established life, will not necessarily create a new residence.

Sunderland City Council sought judicial review of South Tyneside Council’s position that Sunderland was responsible for providing after-care services to SF under section 117 of the Mental Health Act 1983. SF had previously been detained under section 3 and later moved to a residential college in Sunderland. Following a suicide attempt, she was admitted informally to Rose Lodge in South Tyneside and subsequently detained there under sections 2 and 3. The issue was whether, when detained, she was resident in Sunderland, resident in South Tyneside, or without a residence for section 117(3).

1. Claim refused. Sunderland, rather than South Tyneside, was responsible for SF’s section 117 after-care. There were no orders as to costs.
2. Section 117 must establish a workable and effective system of community after-care. Section 117(3) identifies one responsible authority. It does not permit dual responsibility, and the area of the hospital in which a patient is compulsorily detained cannot itself constitute the relevant residence.
3. “Resident” has its ordinary meaning, subject to the statutory context. There was no material difference in this context between resident, ordinarily resident and normally resident. Residence is a question of fact, applying the settled-purpose formulation in R v London Borough of Barnet ex parte Shah [1983] 2 AC 309.
4. Temporary presence is assessed qualitatively, not by duration alone. Relevant considerations include voluntariness, settled purpose, the regular order of life, the purpose and circumstances of the stay, and the extent to which it disrupts or is likely to end that order.
5. SF’s short-term stay at Rose Lodge was informal but closely analogous to compulsory admission. It arose from the force of circumstances, disrupted her established life, and was not for a settled purpose or part of its regular order. Rose Lodge therefore did not become her residence. Sunderland remained a sensible and tenable residence.

First-instance judicial review decision. Permission to appeal was sought. The judge refused permission on the stated grounds but allowed 14 days after receipt of the perfected judgment for an application to the Court of Appeal.