Template letter to request an assessment of capacity

09/05/2017 07:57:00

A template letter is now available for use by practitioners when requesting medical doctors to conduct an assessment of a client’s capacity.

Using the letter

The purpose of the template letter, provided by the Law Society鈥檚 Mental Health and Capacity Task Force, is to highlight to doctors that the functional approach must be used when assessing capacity.

The requirement to apply a functional approach to capacity will be given statutory effect to the current common law position on the commencement of  of the . However, the approach has been the required legal standard for some time.

The template letter emphasis the point and will hopefully be of assistance to practitioners in their dealings with medical practitioners on this issue. 

eNewsletters

This article originally appeared in the Law Society eZine. For more information on the eZine and other online publications, visit the eNewsletters page.