Sherwood Forest Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust & Anor v H [2020] EWCOP 5

Application by health trust to approve a care plan, prepared by P’s daughter and a consultant surgeon, for P who is 71, suffering from a cancer in the mouth that, if left untreated, would be painfully fatal and who lacks capacity to decide on medical treatment. Application approved.

In this judgment, the Vice President, Hayden J, recounts the patient’s history and censures the health trust for taking six months to bring the plan before the Court of Protection, as delay “will invariably be inconsistent with P's welfare and, if resolution cannot be achieved, having particular regard to P's own timescales, then proceedings should be issued.” [16]

He then reviews the treatment options available, against the background that P at times refused to acknowledge that she had cancer and that the lesion had grown rapidly in the last month or two, and approves the plan. Given the delays, he concludes the judgment by stating at [39] that there “may have been alternatives and it may have been possible for the Official Solicitor to have been appointed earlier.” Accordingly counsel for the OS has agreed to prepare a short document suggesting how their appointment can be expedited in these cases. He also appends his recently published guidance on medical treatment applications as “the facts of this case provide an appropriate opportunity to set it out in full in the case law “

Read the judgment in full on Bailii