The issue of delays in bringing applications on behalf of P within the Court of Protection was recently outlined in the case Cardiff & Vale University Health Board v P [2020] EWCOP 8
The focus of the case was in reference to the dental treatment for P. P was a severely autistic 17 year old with very little ability to communicate directly.
P was required to undergo a CT scan in January 2019 to ascertain if he required any dental treatment. The CT scan shown that P had sustained decay which had impacted on his wisdom teeth.
Following on from this, P’s parents observed that P began banging his head against a wall in October 2019. They believed this to be a response to the dental pain he was suffering, however P was unable to communicate this directly. As P’s behaviour deteriorated, P’s parents were concerned that P could have been suffering with concussion, or sustained a head injury such as a fractured skull as a result of him banging his head against walls.
A main issue with the case was that the application to Court in respect of P’s requirement of dental treatment was only made on 20th February 2020. In his judgement, Hayden J expressed his concerns at the delays in bringing the application. He stated:
‘This is the second time in the last few months when I have heard a case which reveals that a vulnerable person has fallen through the net the system tries to provide. Here, P has been permitted to suffer avoidably for many months. His needs, it requires to be said, have simply not been met. The philosophy of the Mental Capacity Act 2005 is to enable those who are vulnerable in consequence of incapacity to have equality of opportunity with their capacious co-evals. Here, P’s capacity, his inability to communicate his distress, led to a failure to provide him with appropriate medical treatment’.
P should not have been made to wait several months for an application to be made, particularly given the significant pain he was clearly in, and his inability to communicate the same to anyone.
