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Anonymity Orders: up-date on the appeal in PMC v A Local Health Board [2024] EWHC 2969 (KB)
Published: 28/02/2025 | News
The appeal in PMC v A Local Health Board was heard on 25 February 2025 but was adjourned to early summer pending the outcome of the appeal and the judgment of the Supreme Court in Abbasi v Newcastle upon Tyne NHS Trust [2023] EWCA Civ 331. For a detailed discussion of PMC, see Katriona King’s discussion on 7 February 2025.
Since Nicklin J’s judgment in PMC was handed down on 22 November 2024, his judgment has caused county-wide uncertainty in England and Wales on the proper approach to Anonymity Orders and there have been a variety of inconsistent and conflicting outcomes in personal injury and clinical negligence claims by the lower courts.
The Court of Appeal stated on 25 February 2025, in a short judgment on the reasons for an adjournment by the Master of the Rolls (Sir Geoffrey Vos), that in the meantime JX MX v Dartford and Gravesham NHS Trust [2015] 1 WLR 364 remained good law and form PF10 should be followed and used:
In the concluding section of his judgment, Nicklin J set out a critique at [147]- [159] of the model order devised by the PIBA and published as a court form, numbered PF10, in the light of the decision in JX MX and commonly used at approval hearings. We do not express any view on the merits of that critique. We are in no position to do so at this stage. However, in the light of the information about the practical impact of that critique which has been provided to us at the hearing today, we would suggest that, for the sake of good order, it may be best for practitioners and judges to continue to use that form for the time being.
…
As we have said, it is advisable to use PF10 in the interregnum that arises until judgment is given in this appeal. It is also worth pointing out that first instance judges remain bound by the decision in JX MX, until that decision is either departed from by the Court of Appeal or overruled by the UKSC.
The citation for the above is PMC (a child by his mother and litigation friend FLR) v A Local Health Board [2025] EWCA Civ 176.
The parties to be represented at the appeal when heard include leading counsel for the Personal Injury Bar Association (intervening), the Official Solicitor, the Attorney General (as advocate to the court) in addition to the Appellant and Respondent. Two days have now been set aside to hear oral submissions from all those represented.
It might be said that this is a cautionary tale of judicial overreach and that first instance judges should confine their Judgments to the facts and matters in front of them. However, the underlying principle endorsed by Nicklin J of a presumption in favour of open justice has already been approved by the Court of Appeal in Tickle v BBC [2025] EWCA Civ 42, see para 49 (Sir Geoffrey Vos, Master of the Rolls). How this will feed into the outcome of the appeal in PMC and the issues of wider concern to personal injury and clinical negligence practitioners, will have to be seen.
John accepts instructions in Personal Injury and Clinical Negligence matters, alongside his wider expertise in insurance related matters.