Who's the responsible authority for private hospitals?

This isn’t really important now that the tribunal application form doesn’t ask for Responsible Authority but, for example, for Priory Hospital Newbury is it “Priory Group Ltd” (or some other company name) or “Rebekah Cresswell and Trudi Pheasant”?

Rule 1 defines the responsible authority as meaning “in relation to a patient detained under the Mental Health Act 1983 in a hospital within the meaning of Part 2 of that Act, the managers (as defined in section 145 of that Act)”. And Section 145 defines the managers as “if the establishment is in England, the person or persons registered as a service provider under Chapter 2 of Part 1 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 in respect of the regulated activity (within the meaning of that Part) relating to the assessment or medical treatment of mental disorder that is carried out in the establishment”. Here are the CQC registration details for Priory Hospital Newbury:

Assessment or medical treatment for persons detained under the Mental Health Act 1983

Ms Rebekah Cresswell is responsible for these services.

Mrs Trudi Elizabeth Pheasant is the registered manager for these services at this location.

Jonathan - if you look further up the registration details page on the CQC website (under the address of the hospital) it states

Provided and run by: Priory Rehabilitation Services Limited

So that company seems to be the responsible authority, whereas Ms Rebekah Campbell (who is apparently the CEO of Priory Group) is the “nominated person” required by reg 6(2) of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014 (Requirement where the service provider is a body other than a partnership):

(2) The body must give notice to the Commission of the name, address and position in the body of an individual (in these Regulations referred to as “the nominated individual”) who is—
(a) employed as a director, manager or secretary of the body, and
(b) responsible for supervising the management of the carrying on of the regulated activity by the body.

Since she’s a nominee of a corporate service provider, by definition she can’t be the registered provider herself. Likewise, Trudi Pheasant, who is the registered manager appointed by the provider.

The wording on the CQC website could be clearer.

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Excellent, thanks. That’s so much more sensible than what I thought it might be. The words “person or persons” threw me off, but clearly a company is a legal person.

It looks like there are various Priory companies that are responsible authorities for different hospitals, for example the registration information for Priory Rehabilitation Services Limited lists three locations, and the registration details for Priory Healthcare Limited lists 14.