Making decisions : helping people who have difficulty deciding for themselves : a guide for legal practitioners.

  • Great Britain. Lord Chancellor's Department.
Date:
2003
Catalogue details

Licence: Open Government Licence

Credit: Making decisions : helping people who have difficulty deciding for themselves : a guide for legal practitioners. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    8/40 (page 6)
    Who can assess capacity? The person (for example a healthcare professional, relative or carer) who needs to obtain consent will be the first to consider whether the person concerned has the necessary capacity to give it. In legal matters such as making a will or an Enduring Power of Attorney the solicitor may decide to get an opinion from a doctor. Where consent to medical treatment or examination is required, the doctor or other healthcare professional proposing the treatment should decide whether the patient has capacity to consent or to refuse consent. If a person’s capacity is disputed, the High Court should decide. The person’s general practitioner should be able to give an opinion on his or her general condition and assess their capacity to make particular decisions. The person being assessed may feel more at ease with a familiar doctor, particularly if that doctor has known the person for some time. However, such familiarity and knowledge of the patient’s family can also make an objective assessment more difficult. It may then be more appropriate to request an assessment from a specialist practitioner such as a psychiatrist or a geriatrician, who has expertise in the patient’s particular medical condition. In any event, it will usually be important for the GP to be consulted. The law tends to view doctors as experts in the assessment of mental Capacity. In some circumstances, for example where an application is made to the Court of Protection to take over control of a person’s financial affairs, the law requires an assessment of the person’s capacity to manage their own affairs to be carried out by a ‘registered medical practitioner’.