A general guide on how the Mental Capacity Act affects you and how you can plan ahead for when you no longer have the mental capacity to make decisions for yourself.
View this information as a PDF (new window)
Health professionals and others must act in your best interests before taking certain steps that affect your care and treatment.
Section 4 of the Mental Capacity Act has a best interests checklist, which outlines what someone needs to consider before taking an action or decision for you while you lack capacity.
The Mental Capacity Act gives health professionals the legal right to take certain steps relevant to your care and treatment. This includes for example deciding if you should have a serious operation.
To use these rights they must make first make sure that:
In cases of very serious treatment, such as an operation where the effects will be permanent, they may need to ask the Court of Protection for permission to give it to you.
If there is a disagreement about whether a decision is in your best interests, you or someone helping you can go to the Court of Protection to settle the disagreement.
Suzanne lives at home with her mother and gets support from her local authority to help with her personal care. She has a learning disability and lacks capacity to decide where to live.
The local authority think that Suzanne's needs are increasing and that she should move into supported living. Suzanne's mother disagrees. She says that Suzanne wants to stay at home with her.
As Suzanne's mother disagrees, the local authority should apply to the Court of Protection for a decision on whether it is in Suzanne's best interests to stay at home or move into supported living accommodation. The court must consider Suzanne's wishes but they may be outweighed by other factors.
But, the Court of Protection can only choose between options that the local authority (or CCG) is prepared to pay for. If they are not prepared to pay for Suzanne's care at home, which may be more expensive, Suzanne's mother may need to challenge that decision by:
See our legal pages on challenging health and social care decisions for more information on how to to this.
The Mental Capacity Act says that if you do not have the capacity to make a particular decision, you can be physically restrained to stop you from being harmed.
Amir has a learning disability which makes it difficult for him to recognise risk and danger. He has, on several occasions, wandered out of his house and walked across the road without being aware of the passing traffic.
One day, Amir's sister Sarah saw that he was about to walk onto a busy road, so she quickly grabbed his arm to stop him.
Because Amir does not have the mental capacity to be aware of road safety, Sarah was allowed to use some force to stop him from walking into the road.
However, if Sarah would not let Amir leave the house alone because of the risk of traffic, this might be a deprivation of his liberty. If she tied him to his chair and refused to let him leave, this would be an example of an unreasonable amount of restraint.
It is likely she would have to find a less restrictive way of restraining him, and maybe get legal advice as she may have to ask for legal permission to restrain him on a regular basis.
If you are in a hospital or care home, your liberty can normally only be taken away if health professionals use the procedures called the Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards. This protects you from having your liberty taken away without good reason.
See our pages on the Mental Capacity Act for more information.
Visit our full listing of Legal TermsThe Mental Capacity Act 2005 is the law that tells you what you can do to plan ahead in case you can't make decisions for yourself, how you can ask someone else to make decisions for you and who can make decisions for you if you haven't planned ahead.
See our pages on the Mental Capacity Act for more information.
Visit our full listing of Legal Terms'Capacity' means the ability to understand information and make decisions about your life. Sometimes it can also mean the ability to communicate decisions about your life.
For example, if you do not understand the information and are unable to make a decision about your treatment, you are said to 'lack capacity' to make decisions about your treatment.
See our pages on the Mental Capacity Act for more information.
Visit our full listing of Legal TermsHealth professionals must act in your best interests before taking certain steps that affect your care and treatment.
The Mental Capacity Act has a best interests checklist, which outlines what health professionals need to consider before taking an action or decision for you while you lack capacity.
See our pages on the Mental Capacity Act for more information.
Visit our full listing of Legal TermsThe Court of Protection makes decisions and appoints deputies to act on your behalf if you are unable to make decisions about your personal health, finance or welfare.
See our pages on the Mental Capacity Act for more information.
Visit our full listing of Legal TermsThis information was published in November 2017.
This page is currently under review. All content was accurate when published.
References are available on request. If you would like to reproduce any of this information, see our page on permissions and licensing.