Going beyond the Mental Capacity Act in assessing capacity: recognising and overcoming biases and stereotypes #MentalCapacity2020

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Health and social care professionals routinely assess the mental capacity of people to make decisions about their lives, in accordance with the Mental Capacity Act, 2005. A new briefing note for policy makers and mental health professionals looks at how we can mitigate the risk of assumptions and biases in assessments of mental capacity.

Alex Ruck Keene, an expert in mental capacity and mental health law, summarises the briefing and looks forward to the live streamed #MentalCapacity2020 debate at 12pm on Thursday 26th March.

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Decision-making capacity of inpatients with schizophrenia: don’t assume people are incapable

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Mental Health Masters Students from UCL summarise a recent cross-sectional study on the association of decision-making capacity for treatment and research in inpatients with schizophrenia and related psychoses.

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An equal exchange? Practitioners’ accounts of social care assessment under the Care Act

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Tanya Moore considers a qualitative coproduced study of English practitioners’ accounts of social care assessment practices under the Care Act 2014.

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Bridging the gap between mental and physical healthcare in general hospitals #TreatAsOne

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Kirsten Lawson presents the findings and recommendations of the recent National Confidential Enquiry into Patient Outcome and Death #TreatAsOne report.

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Let’s talk about sex! Sexual consent for people with learning disabilities

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Nick Burton presents a recent literature review about the right to legal capacity to consent to sex for people with learning disabilities. He highlights a number of important questions that staff need to consider so that they can support people with learning disabilities to have healthy sexual relationships.

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Direct training with accessible materials improves knowledge of medication and capacity to consent in small group of adults with learning disabilities

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People with learning disabiilties may be on multiple medications and be on them for long periods of time. They need access to the best possible support to help them make decisions about their medications. In this post, we look at an action research study that offered training to people to see if it improved their knowledge and their capacity to consent.

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Choking in people with learning disabilities: what can be done to reduce the risk?

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Today we have a debut blog from Nick Burton, Regional Operations Manager at Mencap. He reviews a new multi-agency report that provides guidance for services working to reduce the risk of choking in people with learning disabilities.

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Care homes can be slow to make applications for Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards says study

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Background The Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DOLS) were introduced in 2009 following the Mental Capacity Act (2005). The safeguards were put in place to be used in situations where adults had been assessed as not having the mental capacity to make informed decisions about aspects of their care or treatment in care homes and hospitals. [read the full story…]

New charter for social care organisations to tackle health inequalities for people with learning disabilities

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Last year, we posted a guest blog by Pauline Heslop, a researcher at the Norah Fry Research Centre, who set out the alarming findings of a confidential enquiry into premature deaths of people with learning disabilities. The enquiry found that people with learning disabilities die significantly younger in England and Wales than people without learning [read the full story…]

CQC still concerned about lack of understanding of Mental Capacity Act and Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards

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Background Last week, we posted about the BIDs research, which provided a great deal of insight into the current approach to making best interests decisions under the Mental Capacity Act (2005). The Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DoLS) were introduced into the act and came into force in 2009 to ensure that where people who may [read the full story…]