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Failure to implement a care order

I’ve done another judgment summary for Family Law Week. I’m finding its a useful way to gain an understanding of an area of law,.

This time I’ve dealt with the snappily titled Re E (A Child – Application to Discharge Care Order – Failures of Local Authority) [2025] EWFC 223 (B).

This was a judgment of HHJ Earley regarding an application by a child to discharge a Care Order that the Court had made ten months earlier. The Court dismissed the application and maintained the order, but in doing so made pointed comments regarding the local authority’s failures to implement the agreed care plan. The judge reviewed the legal authorities regarding the Court’s oversight of care placements, once a final order has been made. It is salutary reading for those working in social care and those representing Looked After Children.

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Discussing the role of parental consent in withdrawal of treatment cases

Over at Family Law Week, I have written two case summaries and a short legal analysis on the vexed issue of withdrawing care from seriously ill children.

  • In An NHS Foundation Trust -v- J [2025] EWHC 2247 (Fam), a child was born with catastophic brain damage after his mother suffered a cardiac arrest. The medical evidence was clear that it was not in the child’s best interests for him to stay on ventilation, but his mother did not have capacity to consent to withdrawal.
  • In The Trust -v- Z, FA and KB [2025] EWHC 2100 (Fam), a child was born with a congential brain abnormality and was being sustained only by invasive medical intervention. Several doctors were of the opinion that further treatment should be stopped, but his parents wanted to “give him the best chance” of continued life. The Court overruled the parents’ wishes and treatment was withdrawn.

In my short analysis I note that the law does not consider parental views to be determinative in these kinds of applications. They are relevant only to the extent that they illuminate the ‘best interests’ of the child. This is a point of law wiorht restating, because the lay-public’s view is often that parents should “have the final say” in such matters. I recall that this was the opinion expressed (often in shrill terms) during the Charlie Gard case in 2017 and the Archie Battersbee case in 2022.