Clinical Ethics Committee case 2: Should patients who are unable to feed themselves be fed by volunteers?

Hungry to be heard. British Geriatric Society Newsletter Online January 2007. See http://www.bgsnet.org.uk/jan07nl/1-hungry.html

Hospital food as treatment. British Association for Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition. See http://www.bapen.org.uk/res_bhfi_treatment.html

This issue should not be thought confined to the dependant elderly. One member of the committee described his own personal experience of being immobilized with a broken shoulder and drip in place and, unable to feed himself, getting no assistance to eat

Schneider H . Moral obligation. Ethics 1939;50:46

The Law Commission in its Report on Mental Incapacity (No 231) considered the question of the legal status of advance statements and in their Draft Bill attached to the report, recommend their statutory recognition with the proviso that refusal of treatment should not preclude the provision of basic care. Basic care is defined in the report in such a ways as to include the provision of direct oral nutrition and hydration (Draft Bill clause 9(7)(a) and (8))

See Airedale NHS Trust v Bland [1993] AC 789 [1993]; Grubb A. Treatment Without Consent: Adult Re T (Adult Refusal of Treatment). Medical Law Review 1993:84–7

Grubb A . Consent to Treatment: The competent patient. In: Grubb A , ed. Principles of Medical Law. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004

Keown J . Euthanasia, Ethics and Public Policy: An Argument Against Euthanasia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002

The Law Commission Mental Incapacity Report No 231. London: HMSO, 1995