Lancashire Care NHS Foundation Trust & Blackpool Teaching
Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust v Lancashire County Council
[2018]
The Court has upheld an automatic suspension of a contract
award, going against a recent trend of such suspensions being
lifted. This is a cautionary tale for public bodies making
applications to lift suspensions, and develops the law in this
area.
The Court applied a number of established tests and the case was
the first to apply the Supreme Court's decision on damages in
Nuclear Decommissioning Agency v Energy Solutions EU Ltd
("NDA") in the context of the interim
application to lift the automatic suspension of a contract
award.
In late 2017, Lancashire County Council ("the
Council") ran a Light Touch Regime procurement under
the Public Contract Regulations 2015 ("the
PCR"), for part of its "0-19 Healthy Child
Programme" (a nursing and mental health programme for babies,
children and adolescents, worth an estimated £104m).
