Patients who are incapable of making decisions

In the August/September 2019 issue of BJNN, John Finch, a legal member of the Mental Health Act Commission for England and Wales from its creation by statute in 1983 until 1991, examined the legal basics affecting people who are incapacitated with the consequence that they are incapable of making decisions about the treatment and care offered, or available, to them. The over-used term ‘best interests’ figured prominently. He expresses reservations about the term, which can have a shifting meaning in a variety of widely differing circumstances, so much so that it sometimes has no useful meaning at all. The article begins with a degree of pessimism but concludes with a more optimistic view of future practice.