In TDB v London Borough of Haringey EWCA Civ 1168, the Court of Appeal has clarified the role that capacity plays in the context of the conduct of Care Act 2014 assessments.  The observations of Lord Justice Baker, giving the sole reasoned judgment of the court, are equally of relevance for other situations in which professionals are discharging functions where a person’s decision-making capacity might be relevant.

One of the consequences of the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill cross-referring directly to the Mental Capacity Act 2005 is that the so-called ‘support principle’ in that Act is imported.  This means that all those working with someone within the framework of the TIA – including those assessing (at different stages) their capacity – are not allowed, as a matter of law, to find the person to lack the “capacity to make a decision to end their own life”

Anyone who has been involved in welfare cases in the CoP for a long time will have observed that cases are taking ever longer to be resolved. There is plenty of grumbling about this, but not much suggested by way of practical solutions. I have spent most of today learning about Child-Focused Courts in the family system, while eating a lot of chocolate-chip cookies and drinking too much coffee.

Suicide prevention is understood as a multi-agency public health endeavour aimed at reducing suicide deaths through a combination of individual and population-level interventions. National policy, set out in the Suicide Prevention Strategy for England, emphasises a whole-system approach, including reduced access to means, improved data and surveillance, timely and effective mental health care, and targeted support to high-risk groups (one of which is people with severe physical health conditions).  

The second reading of Lauren Edwards' Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill is on Friday 11 September.  Together with my Complex Life and Death Decisions colleagues I do not take a position on whether Parliament should legislate, but do take a strong position that any legislation should be good law, both internally and as part of the wider web of the law. 

Just too late for the September 2026 Mental Capacity Report, HHJ Burrows has handed down the most comprehensive first instance ‘run’ at AGNI to date, AR (Whether restrictions amount to a deprivation of liberty) EWCOP 45 (T2), concerning (as he identified at paragraph 1): a young man I shall call AR. He is diagnosed as suffering from moderate to severe learning disability and autistic spectrum disorder.

Book Review: Graham Box and Kenneth Chambaere: Assisted Dying: The Great Legal and Moral Problem of Our Time (Policy Press, 2026, 249 pp, £24.99, paperback / ebook) This (relatively) short and (relatively) modestly priced book seeks out to “inform debates about the legalisation of assisted dying, wherever they are taking place” (page 4) and, disarmingly, seeks to do so by engaging directly with “you,” as a “a person with a serious interest in assisted dying” (page 22). 

The September 2026 Mental Capacity Report is now out.  Highlights this month include: (1) In the Health, Welfare and Deprivation of Liberty Report: an update on post-AGNI developments, two capacity conundrums in one case and ‘over-litigation’ in a PDOC case; (2) In the Property and Affairs Report: an update from the Property and Affairs Court User Group meeting and the OPG is recruiting lawyers;

The court term in England & Wales ends today, 31 July 2026.  Whilst this does not mean that the Court of Protection (or indeed the other courts) stop hearing cases, it does mean that there may now be a lull in what has been an exceptionally busy period for those concerned with mental capacity matters.   We do not have an August Mental Capacity Report (for the July one – with huge thanks to Arianna Kelly for taking this on in my absence – see…

José Miola and Louise Austin (eds) Research Handbook on Medical Consent (Elgar, 2026, 485 pp, hardback £240 / ebook c£48) Having spent a significant amount of time recently working with the Association of Anaesthetists on their (imminently arriving) updated guidance on consent, I re-read this book with particular interest.  Albeit not necessarily in that order, chapters in this book enable interrogation of the entire consent process which (in one specific area) that guidance seeks to cover: from consideration of how doctors are to formulate what options to put to patients, to the theory, purpose and practice of relaying material information to their patients, and to negotiation with patients about their choices.

I have updated my resources page on the AGNI case to include, amongst other things, a link to the recording of the webinar held by the National Mental Capacity Forum on 24 June, and guidance from both the DHSC and the Northern Ireland Department of Health. I am now signing off social media until 20 July so (as I say to my children when I go out) please try not to do anything too awful when I am away.

On 14 June 2026, Lauren Roberts MP announced that she would use her position (second) in the Private Members Ballot to re-introduce the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill.  It appears from her announcement that she intends to bring back the Bill introduced by Kim Leadbeater MP (which I will refer to here as the “Leadbeater Bill” for speed).

In one of what is likely to be one of her last decisions as a Tier 3 judge (having very recently been appointed a Court of Appeal judge), Lieven J considered a very complex situation in London Borough of Camden v BW & Anor (Capacity Decisions; Reasons) EWCOP 26 (T3).   At its heart were two questions as to the capacity of the young woman, BW: (1) to make decisions about taking psychotropic medication;

On 14 June 2026, Lauren Roberts announced that she would use her position in the Private Members Ballot to re-introduce the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill.  It appears from her announcement that she intends to bring back the Bill introduced by Kim Leadbeater MP.  I have therefore updated my resources page to enable Parliamentarians (and others) to refresh their memories in relation to that earlier Bill. 

I have started a resources page on the AGNI case, and will start to populate it as more guidance and the like emerges.  The page includes links to a shedinar video that I have recorded about deprivation of liberty after the case, and also a podcast recorded with Community Care, which talks more broadly about the case.

The June 2026 Mental Capacity Report is now out. Highlights this month include: In the Health, Welfare and Deprivation of Liberty Report: coverage of ‘year zero’ as regards deprivation of liberty following the AGNI case (the 'rapid reaction' webinar held on the day the judgment was handed down can be found here). In the Property and Affairs Report…

In A Reference by the Attorney General for Northern Ireland of a devolution issue under paragraph 34 of Schedule 10 to the Northern Ireland Act 1998 UKSC 16, a seven member Panel of the Supreme Court has unanimously overruled the 2014 majority decision in Cheshire West.   The judgment is long and detailed.  A summary by the Supreme Court can be found…

The Court of Appeal has allowed the appeal against the decision of Poole J in Re AB (Disclosure of Position Statements) EWCOP 25 (T3) and made clear that the guidance given in that judgment about providing position statements to observers should not be followed.  In Re Gardner (Deceased) (Court of Protection: Disclosure of Position Statements) EWCA Civ 640, Sir Stephen Cobb, the new President of the Court of Protection, giving the lead judgment provided a summary of his conclusions as follows at paragraph 12.

The issue of visiting in care homes is a distinctly hot topic at the time of writing (May 2026).  Linked, it appears, to high profile media coverage, DHSC has announced a review of Regulation 9A of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014, itself introduced in England in the wake of the pandemic.  Regulation 9A does not, however, apply to judges making decisions in the Court of Protection.

The May 2026 Mental Capacity Report is now out. Highlights this month include: In the Health, Welfare and Deprivation of Liberty Report: Townsend updated, sex before the Court of Protection again, and a profoundly disturbing report on dementia in acute hospitals; In the Property and Affairs Report: new OPG investigation requirements and the consequences thereof; In the Practice and Procedure Report…

In the latest 'in conversation with,' I talk to Dr Jonathan Brown about the very different approach to the decision-making authority granted children in Scotland, prompted by his article arising out of this case decided in Scotland just before Christmas 2025.  The discussion hopefully serves both to alert people to the fact that they should not assume that things are the same either side of the border, to start to think about why this might be the case, and what this might suggest in terms of law reform. 

Bristol City Council v CC & Ors  EWCOP 19 (T3) is both an important and an interesting decision.  It is important because Theis J set out a clear set of expectations instructing experts, and interesting because it is an example of what is now a rare beast, a contest as to whether circumstances gave rise to a deprivation of liberty.   It also includes what is now an increasingly standard reminder that dividing care and residence decisions can frequently be artificial.

The case of Neath Port Talbot Country Borough Council v CK & Ors EWCOP 47 (T3) is the sequel to this decision, in which HHJ Miller set out a helpful worked example of determining whether a person’s habitual residence has changed following a loss of capacity, and where the move has not been at the behest of professionals, but family members. 

Book Review: Oliver Lewis, Coercive Control and Vulnerable Adults: Law and Practice under the Court of Protection and the Inherent Jurisdiction of the High Court (Bloomsbury, 2026, 242 pp, hardback / ebook, £48.60) If I have done one useful thing in the past few years, it was to have a conversation with the barrister (and CRPD specialist) Dr Oliver Lewis…

The quarterly update to the Court of Protection Handbook is now up, covering such matters as the flurry of cases concerning personal welfare deputies, disclosure of position statements, and the new arrangements for securing pro bono representation before the Court of Protection.

The April 2026 Mental Capacity Report.  It takes a different form to normal as our (over) commitments means that we cannot do more than provide an overview of some key matters, with more to follow (where necessary) in May.  We do, however, have a bumper Scotland Report to make up for the lack of such a Report last time – and we would, commend the Scotland report to readers from other jurisdictions as it contains both comparative matters of interest, and research of wider reach than just Scotland.

I have set my (excellent) Law at the End of Life students on the Medical Law MA programme at King's College London the following question: "Do the eligibility criteria for assistance in dying contained in the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill give rise to discrimination contrary to Articles 8 and 14 ECHR?  Give reasons for your answer.

I have not written much about the COVID-19 inquiry on this site.  In part this is because, having been very heavily involved seeking to support clinicians and others trying to maintain some form of functioning health and social care system (and having been involved in the 'real time' inquiry conducted by the JCHR at the time), I frankly could not face going back over history. 

No one will ever entirely fill the shoes of the late Sir James Munby, one of whose defining characteristics was a willingness to speak truth unto power, especially when it came to those who could not speak for themselves.  However, notwithstanding his untimely death, it is important to see that there remain judges who are willing to call out entirely unacceptable situations. 

Many, including, me, who read the judgment of Poole J in SW v Nottingham City Council & Anor  EWCOP 53 (T3) were very interested to see whether there would be a published sequel.  That judgment concerned a (rather complicated) situation in which findings of fact had been made ahead of the court’s determination of capacity, a course of action that Poole J indicated that he was not entirely convinced by. 

One point quite often lost in the debate about the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill is as to the numbers of those who might still need the feel to travel to Switzerland were it to pass.  In this regard, it is perhaps of interest to recall a paper published in 2025 which sought to estimate, using the data of the three Swiss providers to non-residents, the numbers who would fall outside the 6 month prognosis requirement contained in the Bill, and which is a central plank of its approach (see, for instance, the…

The Department for Education has published an updated version of Working Together to Safeguard Children (‘Working Together’), the statutory guidance on multi-agency working to support and protect children in England.  It is a very important, wide-ranging document, but  I want to focus here on one aspect of the guidance that reflects – I suggest – a profound and troubling misunderstanding of the law. 

Assisted dying and the duty to secure life under Article 2 ECHR With grateful thanks to the Socio-Legal Studies Association for the invitation, I have contributed a blog to their series on the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, in which I sketch out an issue which has been the subject of (arguably far too) little consideration to date, namely the way in which the TIA Bill interacts with the state's duty to secure life under Article 2 ECHR, in particular mediated through the Mental Health Act 1983. 

Personal welfare deputyship cases are like buses – you wait ages, and then three come along all at once.  After a period when, at least on the surface, we thought that the parameters of the appointment of personal welfare deputyship had been clearly delineated by the former Vice-President, Hayden J, in Lawson and Mottram, the decision of Poole J in…

Re XY EWCOP 55 (T2)[1] is an important decision about the powers of welfare deputies.  The specific facts of the case are somewhat complicated, and not of direct relevance for present purposes.  As HHJ Hilder emphasised at paragraph 44: The basic legal framework for welfare decision making is the collaborative decision-making process set out in sections 1, 4 and 5 of the Act, which operates defensively.

Dame Louise Casey, leading an independent commission into adult social care, has recently (3 March) written to the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, asking for immediate action on safeguarding, dementia and motor neurone disease.  In relation to the former, she has asked that the DHSC: Lead an urgent review of existing adult safeguarding statutory duties and powers, to test whether the current framework provides sufficient clarity and leverage in high-risk situations.

In this 'in conversation' with Dr Beverley Samways, we talk about the scoping review she has led on to review NHS restraint policies in relation to people with learning disabilities, in the context of Seni's Law (the Mental Health Units (Use of Force) Act 2018), explaining the motivation, the findings and the recommendations, to be found on the resources page for the project here.

The March 2026 report is now out.  Highlights this month include: (1) In the Health, Welfare and Deprivation of Liberty Report: Senior Judge Hilder lays down her baton; attorneys and failures to consult, and a research corner on anorexia and last resort options. (2) In the Property and Affairs Report: new OPG guidance, ‘third sector’ deputyship and a reverse indemnity tangle;

The Court of Appeal in Townsend v Epsom & Helier University Hospitals NHS Trust EWCA Civ 195 has handed down a decision with very significant implications for all medical decision-making in relation to adults lacking capacity.  In the context of an urgent appeal against a decision of the Vice-President, Theis J, Baker LJ (giving the lead judgment), set out at paragraph 68 a series of principles that he considered to be “clearly and consistently established by the case law and professional guidance.”

The Assisted Dying (Jersey) Law has been adopted by the States of Jersey.  Because of the complex relationship between Jersey and the United Kingdom, it awaits “the sanction of His Most Excellent Majesty in Council” in London before becoming law; my money is on it having a considerably shorter and easier journey to achieving that than the equivalent process in respect of the legislation in the Isle of Man, which has clearly run into…

In light of the cases that are coming before the Court of Protection about the dividing line between treatments which are clinically inappropriate (and hence are not on the table), and treatments which are not in the person’s best interests (and hence are in principle on the table), Medmoune v France ECHR 27, is of no little importance as the latest Strasbourg word on the position. 

In the context of the debates in Westminster around the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, a letter published on 9 February giving an update to the members of the Tynwald (the Manx legislature) on the Assisted Dying Bill passed by the Tynwald last year is of no little interest. As the Minister for Health and Social Care outlines:

In 2018, in MM, the Supreme Court upheld the ruling of the Court of Appeal that neither the Secretary of the State nor the Mental Health Tribunal had the power to impose conditions on the discharge of a restricted patient which would amount objectively to a deprivation of the patient’s liberty. As we set out at the time in our…

In this 'in conversation with,' I talk to Professor Tony David about his new paper, Insight, the law and psychiatry: Going round in circles or playing nice?.  We talk about what 'insight' means clinically, and how law and medicine can have a more productive discussion about applying the concept in a way which better secures the interests of those whose capacity to make relevant decisions may be under examination.

Whilst the Supreme Court considers the Attorney General for Northern Ireland’s reference, I am being cautious about commenting about cases concerning deprivation of liberty, given my role in the case.  However, I think that I can properly say that the decision of Henke J in East Riding of Yorkshire Council v The Mother & Ors EWCOP 11 (T3) is another in a line of first instance decisions which reinforce how badly the question of the scope of parental responsibility relating to confinement for those under 16 requires consideration by the appellate courts.  

R(CGT) v West Sussex County Council EWHC 293 (Admin) (HHJ Auerbach, sitting as a s.9 Judge)# Summary CGT (acting through his father, SGT) as litigation friend, brought a judicial review of a decision taken by West Sussex County Council in June 2024 to: Refuse to provide care and support to CGT on the basis that he did not financially qualify; and…

In Re AB (Enable & Thrive Ltd) EWCOP 11 (T3), Senior Judge Hilder, not without a certain degree of reluctance, confirmed that a trust corporation which has (corporately) no independent regulatory oversight can, in some situations, be appointed as a property and affairs deputy.  That category of trust corporation had been envisaged in an earlier judgment of Senior Judge Hilder, …

Cwm Taf Morgannwg University Health Board v RW & Anor EWCOP 10 (T3) provides a snapshot of the realities of navigating health and welfare decision-making of a kind that rarely makes it to court.  In short compass, it concerns a failure by a hospital to consult with an attorney regarding decision-making about life-sustaining treatment.  In the context of a considerable focus on understanding about the MCA in Parliament at the moment, it is important to emphasise that failures to apply the Act are not uncommon, including (here) failures to comply with a clear statutory duty to consult.