Our updated human rights approach

Page last updated: 12 December 2023

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Human rights Articles relevant to health and social care

The Human Rights Act 1998 sets out human rights in a series of ‘Articles’. Each Article deals with a different right. These are all taken from the European Convention on Human Rights and are commonly known as ‘the Convention Rights’.

Human rights cannot be given away or taken away from you by anybody – although some rights (non-absolute) can be restricted in certain circumstances but only if the Government can show that the restriction is:

  • lawful
  • legitimate (there is a genuine aim or reason for doing it)
  • proportionate (it’s the least restrictive way to meet that aim).

For example, a person’s right to liberty (Article 5, European Convention on Human Rights) can be restricted if they are detained under the Mental Health Act, making this a non-absolute right.

The following table shows which regulations in the Health and Social Care Act 2008 link to the European Convention on Human Rights Articles incorporated within the Human Rights Act. We can use these regulations to take action to uphold aspects of people’s human rights.

We also show relevant examples and where this links to specific quality statements in the new assessment framework.

Relationship with UN Conventions on human rights

The UK is a signatory to several UN conventions on human rights. We aim to ensure that our approach to regulation is compatible with these conventions and furthers the rights of people in line with these conventions.

Our Children’s Services team and our Health and Justice team undertake programmes of joint inspections with other bodies. The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child is integrated into these assessments. This includes:

  • The right to a childhood (including protection from harm and the right to leisure, play, culture and education).
  • The right to be healthy (including access to medical care).
  • The right to be treated fairly (including changing laws and practices that are unfair on children as well as discrimination against children, for example on grounds of ethnicity, gender, religion or disability).
  • The right to be heard (including considering children's views).

Services for children and young people are also ‘core services’ that we regulate in acute hospitals, community health or mental health services. When we regulate GP practices and GP out-of-hours services, we look at the services provided to mothers, children and young people.

The UN Convention on the Child Committee’s UK report (2016) identified persistent inequality in access to health services and health outcomes for specific groups of children and young people, for example those from Roma, Gypsy, Traveller, and other ethnic minority communities, migrant children and young people, children living with HIV/AIDS, in care and custody, in poverty and deprived areas and lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and intersex young people.