Mental Capacity Report - April 2025

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

1. In the Health, Welfare and Deprivation of Liberty Report: a masterclass in determining a particularly complex set of capacity questions;
2. In the Property and Affairs Report: statutory will applications and publicity; OPG guidance on family care payments, and the bond provider saga continues;
3. In the Practice and Procedure Report: a helpful reminder of elephant traps for the unwary as regards when time runs for purposes of appealing decisions;
4. In the Mental Health Matters Report: the Mental Health Bill progresses, and the CQC reports on the MHA 1983 in 2023-24;
5. In the Children’s Capacity Report: a new BMA toolkit to help with capacity and other issues in relation to those aged 16 and 17, and back to the vexed question of parental consent to confinement;
6. In the Wider Context Report: the inherent jurisdiction rebuffed in a personal injury case, recent research of relevance, and strong views from the CRPD Committee on medical assistance in dying and the 2000 Hague Convention.
7. In the Scotland Report: what is appealable in the AWI context, and the complexities of the position of those aged 16 and 17 in Scotland.

The progress of the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill can be followed on Alex’s resources page 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.