Mental Capacity Act

[madasaflake]

i hope I am posting in the correct forum - I expect the mods will move this if I am not!
I have been trying to get to grips with the Mental Capacity Act and how it may affect our situation. I was sent some info from the NAS but it didn't really apply to my query, so I thought I would try you clever people!
I am trying to find out whether I need to, as a parent, obtain some sort of power of attorney over Ian, as he is an adult, with no way of making informed decisions about the big things in life (health, care etc). Just this morning i took him to our local supermarket as I had seen last week that they were offering flu jabs for £15 by a qualified doctor so I had booked him in. When I took him in the doctor started asking him whether he understood what was going to happen. He automatically says yes if anyone asks him a question, but I could see she wasn't convinced. I managed to fluff it and she did it, but I had the distinct impression that she had a problem with him not being able to give his own consent to the jab. It occurred to me that this is something that may happen in the future, but for something more important than a flu jab, and I started wondering what I could do to make sure that I and his dad, who know him better than anyone, could make these important decisions for him.
Any advice would be much appreciated.

[rosemary]

This is something which we are going through just now.

I found these next links very helpful

http://www.publicguardian.gov.uk/

http://www.publicguardian.gov.uk/decisi ... isions.htm

Its a minefield though trying at times to interpret the rules and regulations to your own circumstances.We are using a local advocacy service and they have been a tremendous help.

I am just realising more and more now how you should not just assume that you will always be allowed to have a full say in a loved ones life especially if they have mental health/learning disabilities issues.

CarersLine can offer advice on any issue to do with caring and disability such as benefits, hospital discharge, employment issues, making a complaint, getting a social services assessment and much more.

The service is free. Unfortunately the service is currently only open for 2 days a week. However we do have an answerphone service if you leave details an advisor will call you back.

Telephone 0808 808 7777

Open Wednesday and Thursday 10am-12pm and 2pm-4pm


Also if you click on this next link,then scroll half way down, you will find information about other National organisations.

http://www.carersuk.org/Information/Fin ... anisations

Hope this is enough to keep you going for now.

By the way,welcome to forum

[madasaflake]

Rosemary - thank you so much for your reply and the welcome!
It really is quite worrying isn't it? You go along for 18/19 years making all the decisions and then all of a sudden, because they are now an adult, you begin to wonder where you stand. I will certainly check out the links you kindly posted and see what I can glean from that. I have looked into various powers of attorney, but they don't seem to apply to us as the person has to be able to appoint you in the first place. I know we had one for my late father while he was still able to say he trusted us!
I just want to be sure that if a major decision comes along there won't be any problem with it.
Why does everything have to be so difficult?!!
Thanks again

[rosemary]

As you say all the better to start getting prepared now in case you are faced with major decisions in the future.

If after reading you have any questions, just fire away,always someone around to try help.

Have a think about the advocacy service.They can explain things more fully.

[madasaflake]

Have a think about the advocacy service.They can explain things more fully.

Certainly will - thanks again.