ABSTRACT
Advance Decisions allow an adult to refuse life-saving treatment in a future where they envisage they may lack capacity to deliver that refusal personally. Although an advance decision allows us to refuse any treatment, it is the rejection of life-prolonging treatment that commands the attention of all clinicians, rightly so. In a case heard in the Court of Protection just before Christmas 2018, it became clear that Mrs Jillian Rushton, a retired nurse, had in 2014 signed an advance decision. One of the conditions that must be met by those drawing up an advance decision is that ‘specified medical treatments’ that the person wishes to refuse must be identified. Mrs Rushton's advance decision was sent to her general practitioner and filed. The court found no evidence that the hospital was made aware of the advance decision, either by the general practice or the family members.
