Alexander Ruck Keene KC (Hon)
Year of call: 2002
Silk: 2022
News
Mental Capacity Report – October 2020
Welcome to the October 2020 Mental Capacity Report. Highlights this month include:
(1) In the Health, Welfare and Deprivation of Liberty Report: updated DHSC MCA/DoLS COVID-19 guidance, the CRPD in the Court of Protection and spotting the signs of abuse; (2) In the Property and Affairs Report: two important cases about deputies and fixed costs and how to get financial deputyship applications right; (3) In the Practice and Procedure Report: s.21A applications and interim declarations; the limits of the court's jurisdiction; contempt proceedings and when not to recognise a foreign order; (4) In the Wider Context Report: new GMC consent guidance, Sir James Munby returns to the inherent jurisdiction, new CQC publications and relevant ECHR developments; (5) In the Scotland Report: a new Chief Executive for the Mental Welfare Commission, MWC publications, and what COVID-19 has revealed about ageism and disability discrimination.
We thank Katherine Barnes for all her contributions to date, and wish her well as she steps down to focus her activities on other areas; we welcome Rachel Sullivan and Stephanie David as new contributors.
You can find our past issues, our case summaries, and more on our dedicated sub-site here, where you can also find updated versions of both our capacity and best interests guides. We have taken a deliberate decision not to cover all the host of COVID-19 related matters that might have a tangential impact upon mental capacity in the Report, not least because the picture continues to change relatively rapidly. Chambers has created a dedicated COVID-19 page with resources, seminars, and more, here; Alex maintains a resources page for MCA and COVID-19 here and Neil has resources on his website here.
If you want more information on the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which we frequently refer to in this Report, we suggest you go to the Small Places website run by Lucy Series of Cardiff University.
