Mental Capacity Act - professionals
The Mental Capacity Act 2005 provides a statutory framework to empower and protect vulnerable people who may not be able to make their own decisions. It makes it clear who can take decisions in which situations and how they should go about this. It enables people to plan ahead for a time when they may lose capacity.
The Mental Capacity Act enshrines in statute, current best practice and common law principles concerning people who lack mental capacity and those who take decisions on their behalf. it provides for reform and updating of the current statutory schemes for enduring powers of attorney and Court of Protection receivers.
The Mental Capacity Act presumes that people have the capacity to make decisions unless it can be proved otherwise. The act defines the steps that need to be taken to establish whether a person lacks capacity to make a particular decision and describes the actions that must be taken in order for a decision to be made.
It is illegal, unless in an emergency situation, for staff to make a decision on a service users behalf without following the Act.
This guidance does not seek to replace the Mental Capacity Act. It provides advice and guidance to those people in Salford wishing to implement the Act either within their capacity as a decision maker, working within partner agencies or as a carer or service user.
This guidance has been produced to help you to navigate your way through the process of assessment and decision-making when dealing with capacity issues. You will never be expected to act in isolation as we have a shared responsibility to assess and achieve the best, least intrusive outcome for all concerned.
The guidance should be read in conjunction with the Act and the Acts guidance documents The guidance is still in draft form, so please check it frequently as we update and amend.
Introduction - expectations, requirements, responsibilities and support for professionals.
We have sought to provide a document which can be used to guide professionals, voluntary workers, carers and service users through using the Act.
Professionals (paid and unpaid) have a duty to ensure they are aware of their own responsibility as they may be the best person to advocate on behalf of a service user in order to ensure the best outcome is achieved in each individual’s best interest.
This document has been written to reflect the spirit of the Act and as such is not specific to public sector organisations.
Processes for implementing the Act and some draft forms
Useful links to the Act, to the code of guidance and other information
Downloadable documents
- A guide for people who work in health and social care, Adobe PDF format (330kb)
- A guide for advice workers, Adobe PDF format (280kb)
If you are unable to view documents of these types, our downloads page provides links to viewing software.
This page was last updated on 27 February 2008
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