Medical law seminar: best interests - planning ahead

This seminar has now taken place, but please complete our form if you would like to be sent a copy of the recording.

The best interests of vulnerable patients lacking mental capacity is at the forefront of medical treatment decision making but we often know too little about the patient’s actual values, wishes and feelings. The medical best interests can be different from the overall best interests, once a patient's values are taken into account, but how can we know what those values might be? Deciding what a person might have chosen if they had the capacity to communicate it is fraught with difficulty and we rely heavily on those who know the patient best to tell us what they think they would want. The importance of advance care planning is vital if we are to give patients autonomy.

We are hosting an in-person seminar, where we will be joined by Dr Zoë Fritz, Professor Imogen Goold and Rebecca Langley, as we discuss how best interest decisions are made in the Court of Protection and how they can be improved with advance care planning - starting these difficult conversations much earlier.

Rob Tobin will also walk through some of the recent Court of Protection cases our Medical Law Group have worked on, focusing on the ethical and legal challenges facing clinicians, relatives and judges in making the right best interests decisions.

This seminar is aimed at all clinicians from primary care, community care and acute medicine, those working in legal services teams for healthcare providers, members of ethics committees, hospital chaplaincy and all others interested in this fascinating topic.