Application regarding the proposed withdrawal of clinically assisted nutrition and hydration (CANH) in respect of the 85 year old P. The application was granted.

Application to prevent publication of a video of a patient, P, in her treating hospital. The application was granted.

Guidance has been given on the taking of samples from a person who does not have the capacity to consent.

The court made declarations both as to capacity and as to treatment of the P that were sought by ​King's College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust.

Application to withdraw CANH from the P, who was in a persistent vegetative state, was allowed.

The P had been in a persistent vegetative state since 2011 after she sustained severe hypoxic brain damage following a cardiac arrest.  During the course of 2017, a number of meetings took place and it was reluctantly agreed by all those concerned that it was in her best interests for the CANH to be withdrawn. The judge had regard to Aintree University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust v James [2013] UKSC 67 (the purpose of the best interest test is to consider from the patient's point of view, where a patient is suffering from an incurable disability, the question is, in fact, whether they would regard their life as worthwhile or futile) and Airedale NHS Trust v Bland [1993] UKHL 17.

The application was allowed. There was no prospect of recovery and no benefit would be derived from any further investigation or treatment. The judge was satisfied that on a best interests analysis, the evidence was sufficient to say that the P had, prior to her injury, expressed a strong wish in fact not to live a disabled and a dependent life.

Read the full text of the judgment on Bailii

Appeal against a decision which justified the P's deprivation of liberty was allowed.

Application by the P against a decision that he lacked capacity to litigate on his own behalf in proceedings brought by Dorset County Council. Appeal dismissed.

The P was diagnosed as suffering from an impairment of, or disturbance in, the functioning of his mind or brain arising out of a persistent delusional disorder. Dorset County Council had sought the appointment of a deputy to manage the P’s property and affairs on the basis of his apparent inability to do so on his own account. The P wanted to conduct the substantive proceedings on his own account but the court held that he lacked capacity to do so. The P appealed this decision.

The court dismissed the appeal. In relation to the P’s first ground of appeal (no reasonable grounds for believing he lacked litigation capacity), the court could see no basis on which it could be said that his proposed appeal would have a real prospect of success. In relation to his second ground (failure to understand the P’s submissions reduced to writing in his witness statement), again there was nothing in his second ground of appeal which led the court to consider that this ground had any real prospect of success.
​
Read the full text of the judgment on Bailii