Explains your rights to consent to (or refuse) treatment, including what 'consent' means, when you can be treated without your consent, and how to make a complaint.
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You have the right to decide if you want to consent to treatment. But if you lack capacity to make those decisions, the healthcare professional in charge of your care will normally make them for you (unless it is serious treatment). These decisions will be based on what they think will be in your best interests, but this might not be exactly what you want.
Planning ahead is a way for you to set out how you want to be treated in future, so healthcare professionals can follow your wishes. If you're sectioned, healthcare professionals should also take these wishes into consideration when treating you, even though they don’t have to follow them.
There are three main ways you can plan ahead and set out your wishes for future treatment:
You can find out more about each of these ways to plan ahead in our legal pages on the Mental Capacity Act 2005. You can also find out more about different crisis services and crisis planning options in our pages on crisis services.
This information was published in March 2018. We will revise it in 2020.
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