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TN v An NHS ICB [2022] EWCOP 53

Coronavirus vaccination

TN appealed, to a High Court judge, a circuit judge's decision that it was in her 22-year-old son RN's best interests to be administered a coronavirus vaccination. (1) TN argued that parental rights continue at any age (including beyond 16 or 18) when the child lacks capacity to understand, and that this can only be overridden in the extreme and limited circumstances of failing to care for the child. The High Court judge described this as a paternalistic approach consigned to history and a subversion of adult autonomy: it was for the court to decide, not the mother. (2) TN was concerned about the effect of a vaccination on RN's heart, and had obtained a blood antibody test showing that RN likely had already been infected with coronavirus. The High Court judge decided that there was a greater risk from natural infection than from a vaccination, and that the circuit judge's decision on best interests was correct.