Assessing Capacity to Make Decisions about Long-term Care Needs: Ethical Perspectives and Practical Challenges in Hospital Social Work

Ethics and Social Welfare 6 (4):411-417 (2012)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

In this paper I will examine how the Mental Capacity Act 2005 regulates the assessment of decision-making capacity in England and Wales. I will argue that there are difficulties in reconciling the Act with how people make decisions in practice. I will explore how ideas from the ethics of care and from phenomenology can be used to take better account of how capacity flows from a person's relationships as well as their individual abilities. I will conclude by discussing some of the ethical issues that have arisen in my assessments of decision-making capacity and how I have tried to respond.

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 90,593

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Capacity, Mental Mechanisms, and Unwise Decisions.Tim Thornton - 2011 - Philosophy, Psychiatry, and Psychology 18 (2):127-132.
Clarifying Capacity: Reasons and Value.Jules Holroyd - forthcoming - In Lubomira Radoilska (ed.), Autonomy and Mental Health. Oxford University Press.
The Pragmatic Aspects of Assessing Mental Capacity.Ajit Shah - 2011 - Philosophy, Psychiatry, and Psychology 18 (2):133-134.
The Paradox of the Assessment of Capacity Under the Mental Capacity Act 2005.Ajit Shah - 2011 - Philosophy, Psychiatry, and Psychology 18 (2):111-115.
Autonomy and Long-Term Care.George J. Agich - 1993 - Oxford University Press.
Decision-Making Capacity and the Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards.Peter Lucas - 2011 - Philosophy, Psychiatry, and Psychology 18 (2):117-122.
Mental capacity and the applied phenomenology of judgement.Wayne Martin & Ryan Hickerson - 2013 - Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 12 (1):195-214.
Decision-making capacity.Louis Charland - 2011 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Mental Competence or Best Interests?Ajit Shah - 2011 - Philosophy, Psychiatry, and Psychology 18 (2):151-152.
Faulty judgment, expert opinion, and decision-making capacity.Michel Silberfeld & David Checkland - 1999 - Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics 20 (4):377-393.

Analytics

Added to PP
2012-11-27

Downloads
34 (#407,230)

6 months
1 (#1,040,386)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?