Resources – duty of local authority to assess needs of sick and disabled persons and to provide services to meet such needs A local authority was not entitled to take into account the availability of resources when deciding, under s2 Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act 1970, whether to make provision to meet the needs of a disabled person. Once the local authority had determined that it was necessary to make such provision, it owed an absolute duty to that person to make appropriate arrangements. At that stage the availability of resources might well be relevant to the manner in which provision would be made to meet the needs of the disabled person concerned. Thus a local authority’s decision, based on the availability of resources, to meet the needs of an elderly woman for 24 hour care via a nursing home placement, rather than continue to support her in her own home, was lawful.
