Mental Capacity Report – December 2025

Welcome to the December 2025 Mental Capacity Report. Highlights this month include:

1. In the Health, Welfare and Deprivation of Liberty Report: holding the risk in medical treatment cases; capacity to marry under the spotlight; and mental health conditions, cancer investigation and capacity;
2. In the Property and Affairs Report: the general costs rule in property and affairs cases under pressure, and a guest post on appointeeship;
3. In the Practice and Procedure Report: fact-finding in the Court of Protection and recommendations about mediation in medical treatment disputes;
4. In the Mental Health Matters Report: progress of the Mental Health Bill, community mental health services under pressure and a new website with Nearest Relative resources;
5. In the Children’s Capacity Report: brain stem death testing and procedural fairness, and children in complex situations at risk of deprivation of liberty;
6. In the Wider Context Report: suicide prevention and assisted dying / assisted suicide;
7. In the Scotland Report: questionable guardianship.

We have also updated our unofficial update to the MCA / DoLS Codes of Practice, available here.

You can find our past issues, our case summaries, and more on our dedicated sub-site here, where you can also sign up to the Mental Capacity Report.

We will be taking our usual break for the January report, but will be back in February; any urgent things requiring dissemination will be available via Alex’s website.  In the meantime, for a gentle provocation, you may care to watch this ‘in conversation with’ between Alex and Professor John Coggon as to whether mental capacity law is, in fact, law.