‘Food can’t be forced onto patient on hunger strike’

AHOSPITAL patient with a “complex” medical history, who has been on hunger strike for more than a month, cannot be forced to accept food, a judge has said.

Mr Justice Hayden said specialists had concluded that the man, who is in his 40s, was mentally capable of taking decisions for himself.

The judge said he could not intervene even though the man’s decision to “refuse feeding” was “distressing”.

He has outlined his conclusions in a written ruling published online after considering the man’s case at hearings in the Court of Protection, where issues relating to people who may lack the mental capacity to make decisions are analysed, in London.

Bosses at the Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board, which is based in Bangor – and has responsibilities for the man’s care, had asked him to consider the case.

Mr Justice Hayden said the man, who had experienced mental health difficulties, could not be identified in media reports of proceedings.

The litigation made headlines last year after the judge, who is based in the Family Division of the High Court in London, said the man’s needs had been “neglected”.

He censured the health board and said “so much” had gone wrong.

The board’s chief executive, Jo Whitehead, apologised and said improvements had been made.

“He has, since his late 20s, a complex and challenging medical history,” said the judge in his ruling, which was published yesterday.

“(He) has now refused to take nutrition for 41 days.

“It is difficult to say what has led him to take this position.”

But the judge said all specialists involved in the man’s treatment agreed that he had the “capacity to take these decisions for himself”.

“The court has no business in telling capacitous individuals what is in their best interests,” Mr Justice Hayden said.

“Such a regime would be fundamentally unhealthy in a mature democratic society.”

The judge added: “His decision to refuse feeding is distressing to all who have got to know him, in whose ranks, I include myself.

“But it is his decision.

“In whatever time may be left for him, he and the medical team will have to work together.”