University Hospitals Southampton NHS Foundation Trust v T & Ors [2023] EWCOP 54

Judgment giving reasons for decision to allow the applicant Trust to sedate T for three days to carry out an urgent invasive medical procedure.

T, who has a lifelong lifelong diagnosis of moderate-severe learning disability, had been diagnosed with advanced cervical carcinoma requiring urgent treatment. The applicant Trust was seeking approval for treatment to include brachytherapy which, because of the painful and invasive nature of the treatment, would require that T be ventilated and sedated for three days. It was commonly agreed by the medics and the supportive family that T lacked capacity to make a decision on her treatment.

John McKendrick KC, sitting as a tier 3 judge, reviews the medical evidence presented, which all concurred that the approach suggested was the only course open to the treatment team, then analyses the relevant law and cases. He concludes that without the brachytherapy T's life would be measured in months, then the suggested plan was in her best interests though he notes at he had  [59]:

"lost sight of the fact that it is a considerable step for the state to authorise a patient to be rendered unconscious for three days to submit to an otherwise invasive, intimate and distressing treatment."

He was also asked questions about T's deprivation of liberty, which he did not resolve as it can be covered by standard or urgent authorisation of deprivation of liberty.

Read the judgment on the National Archives