Tag Archives: Capacity Assessment

Still no exit plan and “we are some way away from the ideal scenario”: Re A (Covert medication: Closed Proceedings) [2022] EWCOP 44

By Celia Kitzinger, 12th November 2023 Update: On 20th March 2024, the judge declared that it was in A’s best interests to return home, whether or not she voluntarily agreed to take the medications prescribed for her (hormone treatment for her Primary Ovarian Insufficiency). See A, Re (Covert Medication: Residence) [2024] EWCOP 19. This judgment is beingContinue reading “Still no exit plan and “we are some way away from the ideal scenario”: Re A (Covert medication: Closed Proceedings) [2022] EWCOP 44″

A challenging capacity assessment and a professional witness in court

By Josie Seydel and Claire Martin, 19 February 2023 Editorial Note:  A psychologist gave professional witness evidence at this hearing about P’s capacity to make decisions relating to care and contact. The two observers who’ve co-authored this blog post are also psychologists.  Listening to his evidence, they have come to opposite conclusions about P’s capacity.  In this blogContinue reading “A challenging capacity assessment and a professional witness in court”

Reflections from a social worker on a case about capacity for sex: Hull City Council v KF

A key part of effective social work practice is being able to form open and trusting relationships with service users – relationship-based practice can facilitate more effective communication, allowing for transparency and a person-centred approach. Conflict often arises when outcomes don’t match a service users wish, creating a strain on the relationship. One way to rebuild this relationship is to keep the service user informed, ensuring they are aware of decisions being made and the reasons for them.

Capacity and elective caesarean

By Samantha Halliday, 26 January 2022 I have written extensively about court-authorised obstetric intervention[i] but I’ve always relied upon reported decisions.  I am acutely aware that as Rosie Harding has commented: “When only the judgment is available for academic scrutiny, we cannot be clear as to the ways that the various submissions were framed”.   That being the case,Continue reading “Capacity and elective caesarean”

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 (and sexual relations) in the Supreme Court: Reflections on A Local Authority v JB

JB is a 38-year-old autistic man with impaired cognition. He has expressed a strong desire to have a girlfriend and engage in sexual relations with women, but the local authority has concerns that he does not understand that the other person has to consent to the sexual activity.

Endoscopic dilatation against P’s wishes?

By Ravina Bahra, 10 February 2021 This hearing (case number: COP 13711789) before Ms Justice Russell on 9 February 2021 concerned an application to authorise up to five treatment procedures – likely to involve some degree of restraint amounting to deprivation of liberty – that P does not want to undergo. This was a directionsContinue reading “Endoscopic dilatation against P’s wishes?”