AB (Withdrawal of Life-Sustaining Treatment: Delay) [2024] EWCOP 62 (T3)

Application by North West London Integrated Care Board to determine whether it is in AB’s best interests for continuation of CANH.

AB, previously a confident and outgoing woman, had suffered a brain haemorrhage in 2015 and had since been cared for at the Royal Hospital for Neuro-Disability (RHN). At the time of the injury she was 50 years old. By the time of this application AB's condition was considered to be 'MCS minus' which the relevant guidance describes as a ‘state of severely altered consciousness in which minimal but clearly discernible behavioural evidence of self or environmental awareness is demonstrated’. Her care required constant interventions, as set out in detail in [24]. The family was mostly in agreement with the suggested withdrawal of treatment, though one son was more ambivalent and stated AB would want things to take place 'naturally'. 

Against this background, The Vice President, Theis J, concludes it is not AB's best interests to let the CANH continue as 'she is exposed to an increasing number of unpleasant, uncomfortable and undignified experiences through the level of nursing care that is required to keep her alive'. The judge also discusses the need to be more pro-active in making such applications in the light of Hayden J's judgment in GU, describing the delays as a 'systemic failure' on the part of RHN [60-72].

Read the judgment on the National Archives