Section 21: Ill-treatment or wilful neglect: care provider offence
231.Subsection (1) provides for a care provider to commit an offence if:
an individual employed or otherwise engaged by the care provider ill-treats or wilfully neglects someone to whom they are providing health care or adult social care and to whom the care provider owes a relevant duty of care; and
the way in which the care provider manages or organises its activities amounts to a gross breach of that duty of care; and
if that breach had not occurred, the ill-treatment or wilful neglect would not have happened, or would have been less likely to happen.
232.The overall approach to this offence is modelled, insofar as is practicable, on that of the offence of corporate manslaughter/homicide established in the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007 (“CMCHA 2007”). The intention is to resolve the difficulties associated with proving to the required level for a criminal offence the element of wilfulness on the part of an organisation. The CMCHA 2007 removed the necessity of identifying a single individual within the organisation’s senior management structure of sufficient seniority to be acting as the “directing mind” of the organisation, and then proving that this individual behaved wilfully, such that the organisation as a whole can be considered to be guilty of the offence. Instead, the CMCHA 2007 focussed on the way an organisation managed or organised its activities, and on the duty of care that the organisation owed towards the victim. This section takes the same approach in respect of whether an organisation has conducted its affairs in a way that amounts to a gross breach of a duty of care owed towards someone who has been a victim of ill-treatment or wilful neglect by the care provider’s employee or another individual engaged by it.
233.Subsection (2) defines “care provider” for the purposes of this section as a body corporate or unincorporated association which provides or arranges for the provision of health care (other than excluded health care) or adult social care, or an individual who provides such care and employs or otherwise makes arrangements with other persons to assist in providing that care. The intention is to ensure that the definition covers not just provider organisations such as hospitals (whether NHS or privately run) and companies, but also partnerships such as GP practices, and sole traders such as single-handed GP practices.
234.Subsection (3) sets out the circumstances in which an individual is to be considered as part of a care provider’s arrangements for the purposes of subsection (1), specifying that the individual will be providing, or supervising or managing others providing, health care or social care as part of such care provided or arranged for by the care provider.
235.Subsection (4) defines “relevant duty of care” for the purposes of this section, as a duty owed under the law of negligence, or a duty that would be so owed were it not for legislative provisions which impose alternative liability in place of liability owed under the law of negligence. However, the duty will apply for the purposes of this offence only to the extent that it arises in connection with providing or arranging for the provision of health care or social care.
236.Subsection (5) makes it clear that the application of the offence, which requires a gross breach of a duty of care by the care provider to be shown, is not affected by common law rules precluding liability in the law of negligence where people are jointly engaged in a criminal enterprise or because a person has accepted a risk of harm. The intention is to avoid the possibility that, if it could be shown that the grounds for the care provider offence could otherwise be made out, a care provider could escape prosecution by relying on some illegality on the part of the victim, or an argument that the victim had somehow consented to the risk of harm when consenting to the care or treatment. For example, this provision ensures that a care home provider could not rely on an argument that a resident, in not objecting to being cared for by a particular care worker who had a history of poor behaviour, was somehow consenting to the risk if that care worker subsequently ill-treated or wilfully neglected them.
237.Subsection (6) clarifies the meaning of a “gross” breach of a duty of care by a care provider, as being where the care provider’s conduct falls far below what could reasonably be expected in the circumstances.
238.Subsection (7) makes provision similar to that in section 20(7). For the purposes of this section, where the provision, or making of arrangements for the provision, of health or social care is incidental to the carrying out of other activities, it is to be disregarded for the purposes of the care provider offence. For example, a prison that makes arrangements for one of its prison officers to accompany a prisoner, who has suddenly fallen ill, to hospital would not be treated as a care provider, because the arrangements made are merely incidental to the organisation’s primary custodial activities.
239.Subsection (8) excludes from the meaning of providing or making arrangements for the provision of health care, cases where a care provider organisation is merely making direct payments to an individual, under specified legislation, for that individual to use to purchase their own health care or social care services.
240.Subsection (9) defines certain words and phrases used in this section.
