COVID-19
In isolated care Hayden J sitting in the Court of Protection on Skype in BP and S County Council and another [2020] EWCOP 17 tackled the almost insoluble problem posed by an 89-year-old, resident in a care home, suffering from Alzheimer’s disease and cut off from his family on account of the home’s decision to suspend visits because of the pandemic. The home had adopted a similar stance in relation to its other residents. The suspension was activated at 5pm on 20 March 2020 and here was the judge searching for a solution as emergency business five days later. The resident’s daughter as her father’s litigation friend—she was ‘balanced and even-handed, said the judge, and so not disqualified from that role—sought to have him released into her 24 hour per day single handed care if visits were not reinstated. The judge had no doubt that the father derived enormous benefit from contact with his family and also from friends and that this contributed very significantly to his general sense of well-being.
The judge ruled that the father
