KM, Re [2021] EWCOP 42

Application by NHS Trust seeking orders by which permission would be granted by the court to withdraw the life-sustaining treatment that the P currently receives. The application was granted.

​The P was admitted to Hospital A on 19 January 2021 with shortness of breath and pleuritic chest pain. His condition has deteriorated over the course of the last three and a half months to the circumstance where it is said by the treating clinicians that his condition is irrecoverable and irreversible, and that the continued treatment would be futile and overly burdensome. The one issue for the court to determine, in essence, was whether the Trust should be permitted to withdraw the life-sustaining treatment that the P currently receives which will, sadly but inevitably, lead to his death.

The court concluded that it was in the best interests of the P that  life-sustaining treatment is withdrawn.

Read the full text of the judgment on Bailii