Ethics Committee Summary of Tracey Court of Appeal judgement 2014 – telling patients about DNAR decisions
1. No doctor is obliged to give futile treatments and attempted resuscitation is a treatment.
2. Document everythingon DNACPR form and in medical notes. Did you discuss DNACPR with patient? If not, why too ill, lost capacity, what
specific harm you feared causing patient by discussion.
3. Unless harm will be caused to the patient, or it is clearly impossible, explain decisions about DNACPR to patients and relatives.
4. This judgment should reinforce existing best practice. Neither clinicians nor their trusts should feel pressure either to attempt CPR indiscriminately or to force harmful discussions of DNACPR issues onto vulnerable patients.