Guidance

This guideline covers decision-making in people 16 years and over who may lack capacity now or in the future. It aims to help health and social care practitioners support people to make their own decisions where they have the capacity to do so. It also helps practitioners to keep people who lack capacity at the centre of the decision-making process.

This guideline should be read in conjunction with the Mental Capacity Act 2005. It is not a substitute for the law or relevant Codes of Practice.

It does not cover Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards processes.

Recommendations

This guideline includes recommendations on:

Who is it for?

  • Health and social care practitioners working with people who may (now or in the future) lack mental capacity to make specific decisions
  • Independent advocates, with statutory and non-statutory roles
  • Practitioners working in services (including housing, education, employment, police and criminal justice) who may come into contact with people who lack mental capacity
  • People using health and social care services who may (now or in the future) lack mental capacity to make specific decisions, as well as their families, friends, carers and other interested parties

Guideline development process

How we develop NICE guidelines

Your responsibility

The recommendations in this guideline represent the view of NICE, arrived at after careful consideration of the evidence available. When exercising their judgement, professionals and practitioners are expected to take this guideline fully into account, alongside the individual needs, preferences and values of their patients or the people using their service. It is not mandatory to apply the recommendations, and the guideline does not override the responsibility to make decisions appropriate to the circumstances of the individual, in consultation with them and their families and carers or guardian.

All problems (adverse events) related to a medicine or medical device used for treatment or in a procedure should be reported to the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency using the Yellow Card Scheme.

Local commissioners and providers of healthcare have a responsibility to enable the guideline to be applied when individual professionals and people using services wish to use it. They should do so in the context of local and national priorities for funding and developing services, and in light of their duties to have due regard to the need to eliminate unlawful discrimination, to advance equality of opportunity and to reduce health inequalities. Nothing in this guideline should be interpreted in a way that would be inconsistent with complying with those duties.

Commissioners and providers have a responsibility to promote an environmentally sustainable health and care system and should assess and reduce the environmental impact of implementing NICE recommendations wherever possible.