Recently I was sworn in to give evidence in the Court of Protection as a witness of fact for the first time…. not intimidating…. attending the COP as a witness of fact was a valuable experience before being called in an expert capacity and helped to build my confidence in my skills in defending my opinion and how I can help court consider a patient’s neuropsychology needs.
Tag Archives: Best Interests
“At loggerheads”: Habitual residence, best interests and life-sustaining treatment
loggerheads”, but also that the family was effectively “on a different page” about how serious treatment decisions are made in a patient’s best interests, and how the Court of Protection works to ensure that.
Family witnesses in court: Four reflections on Re AH (A Rehearing)
Suggesting that the family is lacking in objectivity because they are in some way psychologically compromised serves the purpose of undermining and discrediting their evidence. This was not necessary to powerfully argue the Trust’s case that ongoing life-sustaining treatment is not in AH’s best interests. The medical evidence stood alone.
Elective caesarean in her best interests
Despite guidance concerning applications for court-sanctioned interventions in childbirth, it’s common for cases to come before the court (as here) where women are within 4 weeks of their expected delivery, and judges regularly express concern that they are having to make decisions about childbirth for women close to (or even after) their due dates.
Health and Welfare Attorney applies for urgent hearing on life-sustaining treatment
The patient’s son and daughter had been asked to agree to the insertion of the naso-gastric tube (on about 23rd October 2021) but had not been consulted about its removal. They say they’d not been told about the removal of the tube in advance, or asked what their mother would want.
Approving a conveyancing plan to move P to residential care
The need for an urgent hearing was because the house that P had been living in had been sold at auction and completion of the sale was due the following week (on 18th November). The house needed to be cleared of furniture and effects before then. Additionally, P needed to vacate the property and live elsewhere.
The most complex Covid patient in the world: Planning for a re-hearing after a successful appeal
All this detailed planning – what needs to be provided by what deadline and by whom – is part of preparing for a full hearing, especially where (as here) matters are contested. Hearings like these feel relatively pedestrian: they lack the intrinsic interest we all feel about the ethically weighty decisions made in final hearings. But they are the essential scaffolding upon which those final hearings depend.
Capacity to engage in sex: Nine responses to the Supreme Court Judgment in Re. JB
The Supreme Court considered the issue of whether to have capacity to decide to have sexual relations with another person, a person needs to understand that the other person must have the capacity to consent to the sexual activity, and must in fact consent before and throughout the sexual activity.
Fact-finding, ‘magnetic importance’, and the consternation of colleagues: A final hearing adjourned
At the heart of this hearing is the question of whether P can live with her mother, who loves her and wants to care for her. Attempts to elicit P’s wishes and feelings have been unsuccessful, but the social worker has said that “having observed the loving and affectionate relationship that [P] has with her family and that she has been cared for by them throughout her life, it is understood that [P] would wish to continue to stay with her family and be cared for by them”.
A life-sustaining treatment decision from Hayden J in the Court of Appeal
Having witnessed a loving and dedicated family rally to their mother/sister’s cause at the previous hearings, I was not surprised to learn that they had brought an appeal against Hayden J’s order that it will not be in AH’s best interests, and not lawful, for ventilatory treatment to continue after 31st October 2021.
Promoting Open Justice in the Court of Protection 