Bill will set up court of protection for those lacking mental capacity
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《英国医生杂志》
The UK government announced improvements this week to a long awaited bill that gives statutory recognition to advance directives or "living wills" and creates a new right for people to appoint friends or relatives to take decisions about their medical treatment if they become mentally incapable in the future.
The draft Mental Incapacity Bill will be renamed the Mental Capacity Bill to emphasise the principle that people should take decisions for themselves wherever possible.
The bill is designed to plug a long recognised gap in the law of England and Wales whereby no one has power to take treatment decisions for adults who lack mental capacity, not even family members or the courts.
The most a court can do is make a declaration that a course of action proposed by a doctor, such as withdrawing artificial feeding from a patient in a permanent vegetative state, would be lawful.
The bill has its roots in a Law Commission report in 1995. The Conservative government at the time proposed to bring in legislation but took fright after a campaign by the Daily Mail, which said it would legalise euthanasia.
The current government has consulted exhaustively again, including sending the draft bill to a joint committee of peers and MPs for scrutiny.
The bill will set up a new court of protection with power to take decisions about the finances and health care of people who are mentally incapacitated. Judges will also have a new power to appoint a manager to take future decisions. This could be a family member, a social worker, or both, appointed jointly, or any individual that the court considers appropriate.
The joint committee, which considered more than 1200 written submissions and heard from 61 witnesses, agreed that a new bill was needed "to provide a comprehensive statutory framework for assisting those lacking capacity to make decisions for themselves wherever possible and for proper decisions to be made by others on their behalf where that is not possible." The committee dismissed fears about euthanasia.
Carers will have a general authority to do whatever is necessary梖or example, washing and dressing梚n the interests of a person who lacks capacity. The bill is to be redrafted at the committee抯 suggestion "to demonstrate that this does not give anyone blanket authority to intervene in the life of someone who lacks capacity but instead protects carers from liability but only when they act in the best interests of a person who cannot consent to being cared for."
Other suggestions accepted by the government include providing parliament with a draft outline of the codes of practice to accompany the bill, for committee stage; putting up front a statement that everyone is assumed to have capacity; and looking at providing advocacy services.
The draft Bill on Mental Incapacity is at www.dca.gov.uk/family/mi/ and the report from the Joint Committee on the Draft Mental Incapacity Bill is at www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/jt200203/jtselect/jtdmi/189/189.pdf(BMJ Clare Dyer legal corr)
The draft Mental Incapacity Bill will be renamed the Mental Capacity Bill to emphasise the principle that people should take decisions for themselves wherever possible.
The bill is designed to plug a long recognised gap in the law of England and Wales whereby no one has power to take treatment decisions for adults who lack mental capacity, not even family members or the courts.
The most a court can do is make a declaration that a course of action proposed by a doctor, such as withdrawing artificial feeding from a patient in a permanent vegetative state, would be lawful.
The bill has its roots in a Law Commission report in 1995. The Conservative government at the time proposed to bring in legislation but took fright after a campaign by the Daily Mail, which said it would legalise euthanasia.
The current government has consulted exhaustively again, including sending the draft bill to a joint committee of peers and MPs for scrutiny.
The bill will set up a new court of protection with power to take decisions about the finances and health care of people who are mentally incapacitated. Judges will also have a new power to appoint a manager to take future decisions. This could be a family member, a social worker, or both, appointed jointly, or any individual that the court considers appropriate.
The joint committee, which considered more than 1200 written submissions and heard from 61 witnesses, agreed that a new bill was needed "to provide a comprehensive statutory framework for assisting those lacking capacity to make decisions for themselves wherever possible and for proper decisions to be made by others on their behalf where that is not possible." The committee dismissed fears about euthanasia.
Carers will have a general authority to do whatever is necessary梖or example, washing and dressing梚n the interests of a person who lacks capacity. The bill is to be redrafted at the committee抯 suggestion "to demonstrate that this does not give anyone blanket authority to intervene in the life of someone who lacks capacity but instead protects carers from liability but only when they act in the best interests of a person who cannot consent to being cared for."
Other suggestions accepted by the government include providing parliament with a draft outline of the codes of practice to accompany the bill, for committee stage; putting up front a statement that everyone is assumed to have capacity; and looking at providing advocacy services.
The draft Bill on Mental Incapacity is at www.dca.gov.uk/family/mi/ and the report from the Joint Committee on the Draft Mental Incapacity Bill is at www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/jt200203/jtselect/jtdmi/189/189.pdf(BMJ Clare Dyer legal corr)