The government’s reforms to the NHS in England are set to cause a wave of legal difficulties for local authorities, solicitors were warned this week.

Ben Troke, partner at Midlands firm Browne Jacobson, told the Solicitors in Local Government annual weekend school that the Health and Social Care Act, passed last month, ‘will mean more tension, more litigation, more ­disputes’.

A combination of budget cuts and rising consumer expectations would encourage more litigation over social care funding decisions, Troke said.

‘In six to 12 months you’ll be stopped in shopping centres by eager young people with clipboards asking if you’ve been disappointed by a decision on care funding,’ he added.

Troke also predicted conflicts with the clinical commissioning groups (CCGs), set up under the act to procure NHS care. ‘The expectation is that local authorities will keep an eye on clinical commissioning groups, but that is not how it was sold to the CCGs,’ he said. ‘GPs are still being told they’re in charge. I think there’ll be some tension there.’

Under the act, local authorities will take on responsibility for public health, including reducing obesity, managing public mental health services and sexual health. So far most of the guidance from the government has been on the HR consequences of taking on staff from the NHS, Troke said.

While £5.2bn has been ring-fenced for local authorities’ new duties, this is tiny compared with the NHS’s £110bn annual spending.

The government’s updated plan for open public services paper, published this week, said that the Health and Social Care Act extends local authorities’ health scrutiny powers to cover all providers of NHS and public health services.