Printed from: https://archive.cmf.org.uk/advocacy/end-of-life/mental-capacity-act
Most courses in medical ethics begin not with the contested battlefields of the beginning, end and moral status of human life, but rather with the far more mundane issues of capacity and consent. These related concepts are crucial to the whole practice of medicine – for a healthcare practitioner even...
On 18 September 2007 Kerrie Wooltorton, a 26- year-old woman, was rushed into Norwich University Hospital A&E department having called an ambulance after drinking lethal antifreeze in an attempt to commit suicide. What happened next turned what is, tragically, a fairly common occurrence into headline news. Kerrie was well known...
At a resumed inquest in October, the Coroner ruled that doctors at the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital had acted correctly in not giving any lifesaving treatment to 26 year old Kerrie Wooltorton when she was admitted in 2007 having suicidally ingested antifreeze. (1) It appears that she had done...
The Mental Capacity Bill,[1] which gives full statutory force to advance refusals of food and fluids, passed its third reading in the House of Commons on 14 December 2004 by a majority of 354 to 118 amidst huge controversy about it bringing in 'back-door euthanasia'.[2] The government employed a three-line...
The draft Mental Capacity Bill[1] was published this summer following a decade of discussion and negotiation. One of the remarkable things about the bill is how long it has taken to come to parliament. This is largely due to the considerable input from various faith-based and 'pro-life' organisations, including CMF,...
