Blog archive

Making simple shifts in approach and language to patient safety investigations can be key to changing the culture of health and care organisations...

Earlier this summer the CQC published this report. The headline being that the Code of Practice is not being used as it was intended due to a lack of awareness and understanding of the statutory guidance amongst providers and staff...

You would be forgiven for perhaps not having read this during your summer holidays! However it makes a worthwhile read firstly, given the furore following the case of Dr Bawa Garba and secondly, because of the wider points the report makes about investigations and coroners...

The Court of Appeal last month overturned a Court of Protection decision that it was in the best interests of a young woman with learning disabilities to undergo a termination of her pregnancy at 23 weeks gestation...

In what is believed to be the first criminal prosecution of its kind, clinician Duncan Lawrence has entered a guilty plea to an offence of failing to provide evidence at Wimbledon Magistrates’ Court. He will be sentenced later this month and could receive a custodial sentence...

Last month Mrs Justice Lieven in the Court of Protection dealt with conjoined applications by two local authorities under the Mental Capacity Act 2005 for court approval of the continuation of the authorisation of care plans involving SR and JTA...

The issue of capacity assessments for patients with long-term conditions requiring multiple decisions and careful oversight of medication, in particular, is difficult. Increasingly, the courts have been asked to consider cases involving fluctuating capacity...

At the start of this month, NHS England and the MHCS published target timescales to consider key decisions for restricted patients under the Mental Health Act...

Protecting the vulnerable: reporting safeguarding concerns to the Office of the Public Guardian. The OPG has updated its useful guidance (originally published on 29 April 2019) for those dealing with vulnerable people who have a registered Lasting Power of Attorney or a court appointed deputy...

NHS Improvement and NHS England have launched a consultation on its proposals for reform to patient registration, funding and contracting rules as part of its digital-first primary care (DFPC) policy to ensure patients have both choice as well as access to integrated care...

This Regulation requires a registered medical practitioner to notify the relevant senior coroner of a death if one or more prescribed circumstances apply in England and Wales...

A statement taken without a caution and without legal advice is admissible at trial if charges are subsequently brought...