Northumbria
Law School hosted a one-day research seminar exploring gaps in legal safeguards
designed to protect both health service practitioners and patients.
Entitled The Legal
Research Agenda for Medicine, Capacity and Mental Health: A Gap Analysis,
the seminar was generously funded by The Society of Legal Scholars (SLS) and
the North East Court of Protection Practitioners Association (COPPA). The event marked the relaunch of the
Northumbria University Medical and Mental Health Law Research Interest Group MELRIG, and explored legal areas relating to medicine,
capacity and mental health, domestically and internationally. Organised by
Senior Lecturer Carole Burrell and Dr Nicola Wake from Northumbria Law School,
the event attracted a number of expert speakers including leading academics, medical professionals and practitioners from
the North East Court of Protection Practitioners Association (CoPPA). More
than 60 people registered to attend the seminar including academics, students,
clinicians, judges, legal practitioners and advocates.
Commenting
on a highly successful event Carole Burrell said: “There are some stark legal
shortcomings in the related areas of medicine, mental health and capacity and we were able to
bring together international and domestic experts to highlight these and describe
how both practitioners and patients can suffer injustices as a result. The
findings will help with our ongoing research and I am extremely grateful to the
Society of Legal Scholars and COPPA for their support and recognising the
importance of further study.”
“A key
purpose of the research seminar was to help bring about beneficial change to
the position of practitioners and patients, including those involved in the
criminal justice system, via international collaborations and the adoption of
new perspectives.”
The President of the
Society of Legal Scholars, Professor Richard Taylor, said: “The Society is
delighted to have been able to provide support for this carefully planned event
which examines the important safeguards designed to protect those delivering
health care and treatment and those receiving it. The potential for academic
research to improve the situation at operational level for both healthcare practitioners
and patients in medical and mental health contexts is a powerful incentive for all legal
scholars and the Society of Legal Scholars is grateful to the Northumbria Law
School for organising this very timely event.”
MELRIG is
an interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary research group at Northumbria Law
School with a focus on various aspects of medical law, mental health law and
mental capacity law. The relaunch introduced a broadened ambit to MELRIG by
introducing mental condition defence issues, and an emphasis on international
collaboration.
Supporting
this approach, Professor Kris Gledhill, Auckland
University of Technology, said: "Academic lawyers both expound upon what the law is
but also make suggestions as to improvements. A key method for the latter part
of the endeavour is comparative analyses, for which international
collaborations are essential."
Carole
Burrell added that in this
regard MELRIG is delighted to welcome new international ambassadors Professor
Kris Gledhill and Professor Thomas Crofts (University of Sydney and City
University of Hong Kong).
