The UK’s highest court has ruled that families and doctors can agree to end the life-sustaining care of patients in a persistent vegetative state without legal permission.
The Supreme Court ruled yesterday that a hospital could withdraw treatment when patients have “prolonged disorder of consciousness”, such as a minimally conscious or persistent vegetative state, if families and medical staff agree.
If families and the medical team were in dispute, as in the recent cases of the children Charlie Gard and Alfie Evans, then the decision would still have to come before a judge.
The ruling came in the case of a man known as Mr Y, a financial analyst who suffered extensive brain damage caused by lack of oxygen during a cardiac arrest. He
