ABSTRACT
In 2006, a case was decided where a man was originally admitted with a 1-week history of declining mobility and lumbar pain. The risks of hernia surgery outweighed the benefits, and an expectant approach was prescribed, both by surgeons and anaesthetists. By May 2003, an ‘expectant’ clinical approach was established, and his subsequent stay in hospital until the hearing in 2006 was prolonged only by his unwillingness to go home. The court was satisfied that the hospital had done all it reasonably could to make possible this man's orderly discharge from hospital, that the hospital had no alternative other than apply for repossession, and that the patient had taken no opportunity to contradict the hospital's evidence. A woman originally requiring orthopaedic surgery was admitted in August 2015 to a rehabilitation unit, but by November she needed no nursing care and was refusing all therapy.
