Mat Culverhouse specialises in community care, healthcare and mental capacity law acting for clients who have ongoing difficulties with social services, the NHS and other public bodies.
Going through a legal dispute is a journey that can be tough to navigate and the ongoing pandemic continues to add extra bumps in the road. As part of our latest campaign, we’re speaking to our leading litigators to find out how they help to protect what matters most to the people we support.
We caught up with Mat virtually to find out how he's been helping those who need it most during these challenging times. We also asked him to share the proudest moment in his career and what he thinks the biggest impact of the delay to the new Liberty Protection Safeguards (LPS) system will be.
Can you tell us a bit about your background and how you came to become a public law lawyer?
I started out wanting to be an employment lawyer, but due to the vagaries of the training contract process I ended up qualifying into a team handling complex psychological injury claims. Through that role was fortunate enough to gain experience in judicial review and mental capacity law, and I quickly realised that I wanted to specialise in those areas.
Can you share a few examples of the type of support you’ve been giving people who feel wronged, or are struggling during this pandemic?
We have found that care homes and other care facilities have, understandably, felt the need to impose tight restrictions on visitors. We have been able to work with families and care providers to ensure compliance with the government guidance, which makes it clear that there must be visiting policies in place and that these must include some flexibility to ensure that the needs of vulnerable residents are taken into account, including the need for social contact.
How have you found working through the COVID-19 crisis – what has been the biggest positive and the most frustrating negative?
I'm lucky that no one in my close family has been directly affected by the pandemic. One positive from all of this is the ability to “meet” with colleagues in other offices via video conferencing. I have seen much more of the colleagues I supervise in Bristol and Birmingham in recent months than I ever did before, and without having to get the train! The biggest negative is not having as much opportunity for real life chats with colleagues – the “water cooler moments”!
What do you think the biggest impact of the delay to the new LPS system will be?
Sadly, the delay seems likely to increase the backlog of cases awaiting authorisation under the existing Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards
regime, meaning that more and more vulnerable adults will not be getting the procedural safeguards which the scheme provides and risk remaining stuck in unsuitable placements.
What case are you most proud of to date in your career and why?
I had the privilege of acting for Lindsey Briggs in her Court of Protection application concerning her husband, Paul Briggs. Paul was a police officer who had suffered a very serious brain injury in a road traffic collision. Lindsey was very strongly of the view that Paul would not want to be kept alive in these circumstances and that it was in his best interests for his life sustaining treatment to be withdrawn. The court ultimately agreed with Lindsey and granted the order she was asking for.
The case was groundbreaking because it was one of the first cases in which a court made an order allowing such treatment to be withdrawn for a person in Paul’s condition, and because of the novel approach we had to take in order to get the case into court in the first place.
Protecting what matters most
Mat has years of experience and expertise which goes hand in hand with a passion to help others and a commitment to drive change for the better.
You can find out more about Mat and some of the landmark cases he’s been involved in here. Alternatively you can read more about our commitment to protecting people’s rights here.
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