Pippa Knight was a healthy infant when at 20 months she suffered an acute necrotising encephalopathy, and sustained very severe brain damage.

The intoxicated patient's responsibility? It may be worth reflecting on why intoxication has a bearing on a person's responsibility for the way they behave in hospital.

A recent case emphasises practical aspects of testing for incapacity.

Child C was seven years old, one of four children, when her sibship was, with the consent of their parents, placed with local authority foster carers in 2012.

We are becoming increasingly familiar with the identification of risks that need to be disclosed when seeking consent for treatment. Previously, we relied upon an arbitrary numerical cut-off expressed as a threshold percentage to determine what we would or would not disclose. But we now are accustomed instead to ask ourselves what the reasonable person in our patient’s circumstances would want to know.

The case of D, a 12 year old girl, was recently reported. She had significant difficulty with food. Starting abruptly when she was ten years old, D suffered unremitting symptoms ascribed to gastroenteritis. It had not been possible to identify an organic cause following detailed and extensive investigation.

At the late stage of 36 weeks' gestation, one week before proposed delivery, a hospital Trust’s application for a covert caesarean section was heard in the Court of Protection. The judge could see no reason why it should not have been possible for the application and hearing to have occurred much earlier.

Mrs G collapsed in church with a subarachnoid haemorrhage followed by cardiac standstill. Resuscitation commenced between five and seven minutes later, but she sustained very extensive damage to her brain. There was no evidence that she was sentient. A vegetative state was diagnosed.

AB is twenty-four. Born in Nigeria, she was adopted at birth by CD, though lived in Nigeria for many years whilst her adoptive mother worked in London as a midwife. When she was 12, AB moved to London, and it became apparent that she had significant developmental delay, with an IQ in the range of 35-49.

Five years ago, a judge’s decision provided us with helpful guidance on how to diagnose incapacity. The case related to JB, a 62 year old lady with paranoid schizophrenia.