St Helen's Borough Council v Manchester Primary Care Trust

It was for the primary care trust acting on behalf of the Secretary of State for Health and not for the local authority to decide whether the care needs of a woman with dissociative identity disorder were primarily for health care or for care which a social services authority should provide. The trust was required to define in its decision the services which the social services authority was required to provide to the woman, whose mental and psychological conditions required constant and expensive care. It was not satisfactory for the two parties to resolve the issue by costly litigation, since the money for the care and the litigation all came from the public purse.

The Court of Appeal so held on an appeal by the claimant, St Helens Borough Council, from a decision of Beatson J in the Administrative Court on 7 September 2007. M dismissing the claimant's claim for judicial review of a decision taken on 30 November…