Mental Capacity in Practice

MCA: Some Things You Should Know About The Act

The Mental Capacity Test

  • Can the person understand the information (they have to understand the salient points) and
  • Can they retain the information (mostly they need to retain it for the time that they need to make the the decision) and
  • Can they use and weigh the information in order to make the decision and
  • Can they communicate their decision?

If the person cannot understand or retain or use and weigh or communicate the decision, you must ask if this is because they have an impairment of or disturbance in the mind or brain. If yes, then on the balance of probabilities the person lacks capacity to make this decision at this point in time.