PG (Serious Medical Treatment), Re [2024] EWCOP 49 (T3)

Capacity and best interests decision regarding possible medical treatment for PG, a 57 year old woman with a history of severe mental illness.

PG has a long history of psychotic illness, has little insight into her poor mental health and has only lived independently for short periods. She is also resistant to any sort of obstetric investigation, perhaps as she says she was raped earlier in life. She is now presenting with post-menopausal bleeding requiring investigation and possible treatment for cancer. The questions before Cobb J were whether it was in PG’s best interests to undergo a clinical investigation and if treatment is required how could that be achieved given PG’s resistance.   

It was agreed PG lacked capacity to consent to the treatment and Cobb J then poses a series of questions to answer including whether it would be in PG’s best interest to undergo the investigation if treatment is impossible and would it be in her best interests to do nothing. He answers these at [59] where he concludes, it was not in PG’s best interests to undergo any investigations of her gynaecological symptoms, nor to undergo treatment for those symptoms. It was however in her best interests to receive such palliative care as her clinicians considered to be in her best interests at the time.

Read the judgment on the National Archive