Assessing mental capacity : a handbook to guide professionals from basic to advanced practice

Includes bibliographical references and index.

This practical, how-to handbook provides essential resources to help clinicians and other professionals assess mental capacity in key decisions. The book illustrates the basics of capacity assessments before discussing a variety of complex issues of which professionals will need to be aware. Offering expertise from a multi-disciplinary perspective, the book provides hands-on coverage of mental capacity law (concentrating on England and Wales). Chapters are written by a variety of different professionals with extensive experience in the assessment of mental capacity. Coverage includes:

Explanations of mental capacity law and how to put it into practice across a range of settings, services and populations;

A "how to" approach for administering assessments of mental capacity both for professionals who are new to the area and for more experienced professionals;

Information on practical aspects of assessing mental capacity for commonly occurring decisions and for more specialist and complex decisions;

Consideration of the best interests process and Liberty Protection Safeguards (LPS).

With easily accessible information, case studies, examples from case law and internationally relevant discussions on ethical issues, this is the perfect companion to help busy professionals understand complex concepts relating to mental capacity.