Mental Health in United Kingdom

In his article on the Mental Capacity Act 2005 entitled “Mental Health and Offender Control” (JP 16 April 2005) Zia Akhtar complained about what was clause 24 of the Bill (now section 24 of the Act). This enables a person to make an advance direction that if at any time in the future he lacks capacity to consent to specified treatment it is not to be carried out.

At that time, no one can tell what their circumstances will be years ahead, or what decision they would take about medical treatment at some future date, because they cannot know what all the circumstances will be.

This objection was in 2005 met by section 25(4)(c) of the new Act, which says that an
advance direction is not applicable if “there are reasonable grounds for believing that circumstances exist which (the person) did not anticipate at the time of the advance direction and which would have affected his decision had he anticipated them”.

Resources

See Also

Further Reading

• Mental Health in the Encyclopedia of Britain
• Mental Health in the Osborn’s Concise Law Dictionary
• Mental Health in the Halsbury’s Laws of England
• Mental Health in the Stroud’s Judicial Dictionary of Words and Phrases
• Mental Health in the Jowitt’s Dictionary of English Law
• Mental Health in the New Oxford Companion to Law
• Mental Health in the Words and Phrases Legally Defined
• Mental Health in the Oxford Dictionary of Law