Author: Imogen Hildred

At 6.50 am on 10 February 2020 Matt Hancock signed off the Health Protection (Coronavirus) Regulations 2020, SI 2020/129. The press reported that the urgent need for the regulations was that some people subject to quarantine by agreement had said they could see little point in the process and intended to leave. I suggested when I […]

Read More… from The UK Coronavirus regulations – legal powers to control a public health crisis

A note on the law and practice of quarantine – of individuals, of groups and of places, of the unwell and of the healthy. Kaci Hickox is a Johns Hopkins’ qualified nurse who worked as a team leader in an Ebola treatment unit in Sierra Leone in September 2014. When she arrived at Newark Liberty […]

Read More… from The power to quarantine

Judges in the Family Division and the Court of Protection are regularly asked to perform the unenviable task of balancing the pros and cons of continuing life-sustaining treatment. The Judge’s decision determines whether the person at the heart of those proceedings should live or die. As the Supreme Court confirmed in a number of appeals […]

Read More… from No Place for the Best Interests Test in Cases of Brain Stem Death

On 2 December 2019 Martin Spencer J approved a settlement of £1.35m in this cerebral palsy case which was compromised without any concession of liability from the Defendant. I represented the Claimant[1]. A review of the facts highlights the continuing uncertainties about how far the decision in Montgomery really goes. At the same time this […]

Read More… from Stepping on from Montgomery: AXM v. Southampton NHS Trust

On 4 November 2019 Master Cook struck out a nervous shock claim by the children of Mr Paul who collapsed and died from an untreated heart condition whilst out on a shopping trip with them in the centre of Wolverhampton. This is the latest skirmish in a long running battle between claimants and defendants over […]

Read More… from Nervous shock and the Material Gap: Is Paul v Wolverhampton a problem for nervous shock claimants?