Sherwood Forest Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust v C [2020] EWCOP 10

Application by NHS trust that it would be in C’s best interests to have surgery relating to her endometrial cancer in circumstances where C has been diagnosed as suffering from paranoid schizophrenia and has delusional thoughts.

C had previously been admitted and detained under the MHA 1983 in earlier 2019 with kidney failure after she had stopped taking medication. Once recovered she attributed her recovery to God’s intervention. In November 2019 she went to her GP with symptoms of post-menopausal bleeding which led to a diagnosis of Grade 2 endometrial cancer. Up to this point C had been capacitous and engaged with the medical treatment but after the diagnosis she became adamant that she did not want the treatment suggested and that ‘only God could cure her cancer’.

After reviewing the evidence from the medical team and a psychisatrist who knew C, Hayden J concludes that it is in C’s best interests for the treatment to go ahead, provided a plan is put together explaining what coercion or restraint would be necessary. The thinking behind his conclusion in [27]

“I am satisfied that it is in the best interests of C to have the surgery. I do not find that to be a delicate balance. There is amongst all lawyers, doctors and judges a strong instinct to preserve human life [….]. Here there is clear evidence of a likely prospect of a successful outcome, where the alternative is that C would die. Moreover, as I have indicated, there is much to indicate that C, when capacitous would want to live.”
 
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