Mental Capacity & Homelessness – National Practitioner Survey 2024
[A message on behalf of this brilliant[1] project: Use of the Mental Capacity Act 2005 with people experiencing multiple exclusion homelessness in England.] Are you a health, social care or...
View Article39 Essex Chambers July 2024 Mental Capacity Report and walkthrough
The July 2024 Mental Capacity Report is now out. Highlights this month include: (1) In the Health, Welfare and Deprivation of Liberty Report: sexual capacity complexities, wishes and feelings in the...
View ArticleFollowing through a decision to withdraw life-sustaining treatment: a new...
In NHS NW London ICB [2024] EWCOP 35, the Vice-President of the Court of Protection, Theis J, gave a careful and considered judgment about the continuation of clinically assisted nutrition and...
View ArticleMental Health Act reform – full steam ahead?
Given the announcement in today’s King’s Speech that “the government will… legislate to modernise the Mental Health Act,” or, in more detail in the background briefing (at page 84), that “the Mental...
View ArticleTriage, COVID-19 and decision-making – a perspective from the courts
Perhaps prompted by the publication of the first report of the COVID-19 inquiry today (on the resilience and preparedness of the United Kingdom), I was emailed today about a case during the pandemic...
View ArticleRethinking the UK’s approach to dying: lessons from an end-of-life helpline
The charity Compassion in Dying has published a comprehensive and powerful report based on analysis of calls and emails received on its information line, together with a YouGov poll, outlining how...
View ArticleSafeguarding Adults Reviews – themes and implications from a national...
In this ‘in conversation’ with, I talk to Professor Michael Preston-Shoot about the second national analysis of safeguarding adults reviews he recently led with Professor Suzy Braye. We talk about the...
View ArticleRight Care, Right Person before the courts
It is perhaps slightly surprising that Right Care, Right Person should make its first reported appearance in case-law in the context of an extradition challenge, but in Platt v The High Court of the...
View ArticleMental Health and Justice – project website reborn
Mental Health & Justice was a Wellcome Trust-funded multi-disciplinary research initiative, running between 2017-2023, addressing a cluster of public policy challenges that arise where mental...
View ArticleA judicial reminder of the hard edges of the treatment regime under the MHA 1983
North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Foundation Trust & Anor v KAG & Ors [2024] EWCOP 38 (T3) is a case confirming the hard-edged nature of s.63 Mental Health Act 1983. It concerned a woman, KAG, who...
View ArticleFutility and best interests before the Court of Protection
When medical treatment can be considered to be a futile is an important, but sometimes difficult, question. What can make it difficult in the context of those with impaired decision-making capacity is...
View ArticleThe inherent jurisdiction, Article 3 ill-treatment, and the limits of the...
How far can the State be expected to go in seeking to secure the rights of those in challenging situations? A few months after this issue was looked at (albeit slightly curiously) from the perspective...
View ArticleLord Falconer’s Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults Bill – update and...
Lord Falconer’s Private Member’s Bill is now available. At the time of writing, there is no date yet set for Second Reading in the House of Lords. As the Parliament website explains, Second Reading...
View ArticleA decision for the court or the doctors? A stark question for Henke J
Re AA (Withdrawal of Life-Sustaining Treatment: No Best Interests Decision) [2024] EWCOP 39 (T3) is a difficult case. It concerned a young man, AA, in a prolonged disorder of consciousness, identified...
View ArticleBelief and mental capacity – the Court of Appeal decides
In Re Sudiksha Thirulamesh (dec’d) [2024] EWCA Civ 896 the Court of Appeal has made very clear how to approach the situation in which a person appears not to believe their doctor. I can do no better by...
View ArticleMental capacity and mental health matters – an end of term report
The High Court court term ends today in England & Wales, 31 July. Not least because the next 39 Essex Chambers Mental Capacity Report will not be published until September, I thought a brief end...
View ArticleThe Court of Appeal, life-sustaining treatment and ‘covert consciousness’
In Re PC [2024] EWCA Civ 895, the Court of Appeal has refused permission to appeal the decision of Cusworth J in NHS North Central London ICB v PC et al [2024] EWCOP 31. The case concerned a 31 year...
View ArticleCodes, case-law, restraint and children
An NHS Trust v Mother & Ors [2024] EWHC 2207 (Fam) is a case which throws two issues into stark relief. The first is the problem of government by guidance. The second is what might be thought to...
View ArticleArticle 5(4), community deprivation of liberty and jury-rigging a solution
Re PQ (Court Authorised Dol : Representation During Review Period) [2024] EWCOP 41 (T3), Poole J examined in some detail the requirements of Article 5(4) ECHR in the context of court authorised...
View Article2022-2023 English DoLS statistics out
The DoLS statistics for England for the year 1 April 2023 to 31 March 2024 were published on 22 August 2024. They show that, despite heroic efforts by local authorities up and down the country, they...
View Article