Man wins battle to keep receiving life support

doi:10.1136/bmj.329.7461.309

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Owen Dyer

London

A terminally ill man who feared doctors might one day stop feeding him has won a landmark judgment ensuring that his wish for life supporting treatment will be respected.

Leslie Burke, aged 44, from Lancaster has degenerative cerebellar ataxia and is likely to lose the ability to communicate. He sought judicial review of the General Medical Council's 2002 guidance on withholding and withdrawing life prolonging treatment, arguing that it breached articles 2 and 3 of the European convention on human rights—the right to life and the right to be spared inhuman and degrading treatment. …