University duty of care to at-risk students

Short answer

There is no single statutory rule that says a university “must” follow up when a student known to be at risk stops attending or misses welfare appointments. But the position is not simply that the university has an unlimited discretion either. Depending on the facts, three overlapping legal duties can require a university to take reasonable steps to respond, and a failure to do so can be actionable. The strength of the obligation rises sharply where the university already knows the student is at risk, because knowledge is what turns a general responsibility into a specific, foreseeable duty to act.

The general duty of care

A higher education provider owes its students a duty to deliver educational and pastoral services to the standard of a reasonably competent institution, and in doing so to act reasonably to protect the health, safety and welfare of its students. This has been confirmed in Government statements and reflects the ordinary common law of negligence.

That duty is not a guarantee of safety and it does not make the university responsible for everything that happens to a student. In the general run of cases the courts have been cautious about imposing a broad, freestanding duty on universities to safeguard the mental health of adult students, partly because students are adults, are entitled to privacy and autonomy, and the university cannot control their lives.

The key variable is knowledge and assumption of responsibility. Where a university knows a particular student is at identified risk, has set up welfare support for that student, and the student then disengages, the situation is materially different from a general student who simply stops attending. Once the university is on notice of a real and foreseeable risk, and especially once it has undertaken to provide welfare support, it can come under a duty to take reasonable steps in response to that risk. Whether it has breached that duty is judged by what a reasonably competent institution would have done in the circumstances, not by hindsight.

The disability discrimination and reasonable adjustments duty

This is often the more powerful legal route where the student’s risk arises from a mental health condition or other disability. Under the Equality Act 2010 a university is a service provider and an education provider, and it has an anticipatory and ongoing duty to make reasonable adjustments for disabled students, and must not treat a disabled student unfavourably because of something arising in consequence of their disability without objective justification.

The significance of this for non-attendance is important. If a student’s failure to attend or to keep welfare appointments is itself a consequence of their disability, then treating that disengagement as mere absence, or simply closing the file, may amount to a failure to make reasonable adjustments or to unfavourable treatment. The Abrahart litigation against the University of Bristol is the leading recent illustration. A student with severe social anxiety who was assessed as unable to engage with certain assessment methods, and who was known to be seriously unwell, was found to have been discriminated against under the Equality Act, and the county court’s findings were upheld on the university’s appeal to the High Court in 2024. A central theme was that once the university knew of the disability and the risk, it could not simply keep applying its ordinary processes and treat non-engagement neutrally; it had to adjust and respond.

So where the at-risk student is disabled and the missed appointments or non-attendance are connected to that disability, the university’s obligation to follow up is considerably stronger, because doing nothing can constitute unlawful discrimination as well as a breach of any welfare policy.

The university’s own policies and the contract with the student

The relationship between a student and university is contractual. The university’s regulations, student handbook, support-to-study or fitness-to-study procedure, wellbeing and safeguarding policies, and attendance and engagement procedures form part of that contractual framework and are generally treated as binding on the university.

Most universities now operate a “support to study” or “cause for concern” procedure that expressly requires proactive follow-up when there are substantial concerns about a student’s welfare, and attendance and engagement procedures that set out escalating steps when an at-risk student does not attend. Welfare and counselling services typically have their own “did not attend” protocols that treat non-attendance by a clinically at-risk student differently from routine non-attendance, often triggering an attempt to make contact, a risk review, and escalation rather than automatic discharge.

Where such a policy exists, the university is generally expected to follow its own published procedure. If the policy says that a student flagged as at risk who misses appointments will be contacted, escalated to a named contact, or subject to a risk review, then the university can be held to that. A failure to follow its own safeguarding or support-to-study process is one of the clearest ways the university can be found to have acted unreasonably, and it can found a complaint and, ultimately, an OIA claim or a negligence or Equality Act claim.

The wider policy direction

The direction of travel across the sector reinforces active follow-up. The national review of higher education student suicide deaths and related regulatory and Government activity have pressed universities to move away from a passive model, in which students are expected to seek help, towards proactively contacting students known to be struggling or at potential risk. Many universities have adopted, or are being encouraged to adopt, a “trusted contact” or opt-in emergency contact scheme so that in a serious welfare emergency the university can involve a family member or nominated person. This is guidance and good practice rather than a hard statutory duty, but it shapes what a reasonably competent institution is expected to do and therefore feeds into the negligence standard.

How the facts change the answer

The strength of any duty to follow up turns on details that you have not yet set out.

What was known, and to whom. A duty to act reasonably is driven by knowledge. If the university, through its welfare team, tutors or disability service, knew the student was at real risk, including risk of suicide, self-harm or serious self-neglect, the case for a duty to follow up is strong. If the “risk” was minor, historic, or not actually communicated to the relevant part of the institution, it is weaker.

Whether the risk arises from a disability. If yes, the Equality Act reasonable adjustments and discrimination arising from disability duties are engaged and the follow-up obligation is significantly stronger.

What the university’s own policies say. If a support-to-study, safeguarding or wellbeing policy required follow-up, escalation or a risk review on missed appointments, the university is expected to comply with it.

Whether the student had capacity and had refused help. An adult student with capacity is entitled to decline support, and the university cannot force treatment or attendance. But even where a student declines, a reasonably competent institution is generally expected to keep the situation under review, keep offering support, assess ongoing risk, and consider escalation in a genuine emergency, rather than simply treating a missed appointment as consent to withdraw all care.

Whether a genuine emergency was apparent. Where information suggested an imminent risk to life, the reasonable response may include welfare checks, contacting emergency services, or contacting a trusted or emergency contact, and simply doing nothing is much harder to justify.

Practical position and next steps

If you are asking as a student, or on behalf of one, and the concern is that the university did not follow up:

1. Obtain and read the university’s relevant policies: the support-to-study or fitness-to-study procedure, the wellbeing and safeguarding policy, the attendance and engagement procedure, and the counselling or wellbeing service’s own non-attendance protocol. Identify exactly what the policy said should happen.

2. Establish and record what the university actually knew, when, and which staff or services held that information, together with what steps, if any, they took. Gather emails, appointment records, risk assessments and notes, including through a data subject access request under the UK GDPR if needed.

3. Consider whether the risk was connected to a disability, because that opens the Equality Act route in addition to any breach of policy or negligence.

4. Raise the matter through the university’s internal complaints procedure first, setting out the facts, the policy provisions, and where the university departed from them. This is usually a required step and is faster and lower risk than litigation.

5. If the internal complaint does not resolve matters, a student can escalate to the Office of the Independent Adjudicator for Higher Education, which reviews whether the university acted reasonably and in line with its own policies and can recommend remedies. This is free and lower risk than court.

6. Court proceedings, whether in negligence or under the Equality Act, or an Equality Act claim in the county court, are available where the harm and breach are serious, but they carry cost, delay, evidential and litigation risk, and are usually a last resort after the internal and OIA routes.

Bottom line

The university is not under an absolute or unlimited legal duty to chase every student who stops attending. But where it actually knows a student is at real risk, and particularly where the risk relates to a disability or where its own policies require follow-up, it can come under a genuine legal obligation to take reasonable steps to respond, review the risk, keep offering support and escalate appropriately. Simply closing the case or treating a missed welfare appointment as the student’s choice, without any reasonable follow-up, is where universities are most exposed to a finding of negligence, discrimination or breach of their own procedures. The precise answer depends heavily on what was known, whether a disability is involved, and what the specific university policies required.