1. The legal landscape and the challenge for practitioners. 2. What is autonomy? 3. Why relationships matter. 4. Enabling and disabling narratives. 5. The ethical role of the capacity and best interests assessor. 6. Capacity and best interests: a not-so-bright line. 7. Conclusion. 8. Bibliography. 9. Appendices: theoretical resources. 10. Appendix: practical resource. 11. Statutes and cases.
This concise guide provides practitioners with the tools for working with complex mental capacity issues. Focusing on developing communication and reflexivity skills to improve assessments and positively impact the capacity of individuals, it sets out how to achieve excellent ethical standards in assessments of mental capacity and best interests.