A patient, who lacked the capacity to make his own healthcare decisions, had been removed from a local hospital by his estranged wife without essential medication. We were instructed by the hospital trust as an emergency court order was required to deliver the patient back to hospital within six hours to receive life-saving medication.
We immediately contacted the local authority social services team and worked closely with them to manage an emergency application to a high court judge. There were a number of things that needed to be undertaken to obtain the court order and we co-ordinated the required tasks between the local authority in-house legal team, the hospital trust and our own team to ensure that everything was done promptly. We also ensured that the police were kept informed at all stages so that they could secure immediate execution of the court order when it had been granted.
Co-operation between the teams ensured the court order was achieved within the six hour timeframe; the patient was safely returned to the hospital and received the life-saving medication he needed; legal costs were minimised throughout the process.
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