Are you up to speed with the latest Mental Capacity Act 2005 case law?

Community Care has gathered some of the leading legal experts on the MCA to help equip social workers and other social care practitioners to apply the legislation in day-to-day practice

By Mithran Samuel on June 3, 2024 in Adults, Children

Never stop learning written on a memo stick. Lifelong learning concept.

Photo: Vitalii Vodolazskyi/ Adobe Stock

Staying up to speed with the case law and its implications for practice can be a huge challenge for busy social workers.

That is why Community Care has gathered together some of the leading legal experts on the Mental Capacity Act 2005, to deliver a masterclass in London next month, designed to equip practitioners to apply the legislation in day-to-day practice.

A similar event in Manchester in March was hugely well-received by practitioners (see box), so we are sure that those who attend the London masterclass on 10 July will come away equally confident in applying their learning to practice.

‘Some of the best training I have ever attended’

Feedback that we received from our Manchester event included the following:

“Some of the best training that I have ever attended.”
“A seminar by the very best in the business.”
“The most informative and exciting learning event I have attended in many years.”
“I’m a locum and paid for this conference out of my own pocket and felt it was money well spent.”

Book your place now

Leading mental capacity lawyer, and Community Care Inform legal editor, Tim Spencer-Lane will open the day with an update on the latest MCA case law.

Handling complex cases

He will also provide guidance on handling cases involving complex capacity assessments and best interests decisions.

Tim will be followed by 39 Essex Chambers barrister and legal trainer Neil Allen, who will deliver a session on the application of the act to hoarding cases.

Neil will draw upon the judgment in AC and GC (Capacity: Hoarding: Best interests) [2022] EWCOP 39, the first Court of Protection ruling on hoarding, in which he appeared.

He will cover, among other things, the relevant information for the purposes of a capacity assessment when it comes to a person making decisions about their items and belongings, and what happens when the right to private and family life (Article 8) under the European Convention of Human Rights is engaged.

Executive functioning difficulties

Neil will also deliver the next session, on the challenge of conducting capacity assessments of people with executive functioning difficulties. In such cases, a person may appear to have capacity to make a decision but may not, in practice, be able to carry the decision out.

He will highlight the importance of using real-world observations, in some contexts, and focusing on the person’s ability to use and weigh information as part of the capacity assessment.

After lunch, Ben Troke, author of A Practical Guide to the Law on Deprivation of Liberty (Law Brief Publishing), will examine the state of the law on deprivation of liberty.

Ben, who is a partner at the firm Weightmans, will look at how to understand deprivations of liberty in context and the importance of focusing on a person’s rights to private and family life, under Article 8 of the ECHR, as well as to liberty (Article 5).

Capacity and consent to sexual relations and marriage

Rounding off the day is a session on capacity in relation to consent to sexual relations and marriage, delivered by Francesca Gardner, a barrister at 39 Essex Chambers with extensive experience of all aspects of Court of Protection work.

Francesca will cover the relevant information a person needs to understand, retain and use or weigh to be able to consent to sexual relations, the occasions when such capacity assessments need to be person-specific, rather than act-specific, and how to assess a person’s capacity to consent to marriage.

Attending the masterclass costs £325 + VAT.