2 weeks Ago
Doctors in two end-of-life cases can be named, the UK supreme court has ruled, after the parents of two children said they wanted to "tell their story". Isaiah Haastrup, aged 12 months, and Zainab Abbasi, six, were at the centre of life-support treatment disputes at the high court in London before their deaths in 2018 and 2019 respectively. During the proceedings, court orders were put in place preventing doctors involved in their care from being publicly named indefinitely.
In a written ruling, the president of the supreme court, Lord Reed, said the need for restriction of freedom of speech must be "established convincingly" and that this had not been done by the two NHS trusts in the case. In the leading judgment, Lord Reed and Lord Briggs said: "Weight can be given to the importance of protecting the medical and other staff of public hospitals against unfounded accusations and consequent abuse. "However, the court should also bear in mind that the treatment of patients in public hospitals is a matter of legitimate public interest, and that the medical and other staff of public hospitals are public figures for the purposes of the [European convention on human rights], with the consequence that the limits of acceptable criticism are.
.. Caroline Davies.
