What is ‘a public function’? With the increase in private organisations offering various services that used to be public services and everyone thinks of a public services, what rights do the people receiving have? Often, hospices as charities don’t have to comply with the same duties that public organisations have. This is true in combating various inequalities, for example. But I think that in general private organisations providing public services should have to meet all the same standards. Hospices will doubtless complain that they don’t have the bevies of lawyers to protect them that local authorities have and staff to deal with all the bureaucratic requirements. However, people’s rights should not be lost just because it is government policy to offload public responsibilities to non-government organisations and then not pay properly to cover all the rights that they would have had.

I was caused to think about this because writing the previous post led to me looking up the organisation that Jack Straw was speaking to, the British Institute of Human Rights. I came across their briefing, done with other groups, on the fact that the Human Rights Act didn’t cover older people in private care homes, or possibly provided with private social care services in their own home. This is old information, because the campaigners successfully got the Health and Social Care Act 2008 s 145 changed to include everyone who provides services in a private care home to be treated as though they were carrying out a public function.

The Health and Social Care Act 2008 at: http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2008/ukpga_20080014_en_12#pt5-pb3-l1g145

The briefing on human rights in private care homes: http://www.bihr.org.uk/sites/default/files/HealthAndSocialCareBill_briefing2.pdf

The British Institute of Human Rights at: http://www.bihr.org.uk/