Nurses and liability for psychiatric harm to relatives

Determining mental capacity: guidance from the courts

Unstable foundations: the complaint system and the duty of candour

Regulation and the physician associate

Lasting power of attorney: protecting donors from abuse

LPAs give those appointed as attorney wideranging authority to make decisions for the donor. The instruments are negatively framed, so they initially grant attorneys the authority to make all the...

The role of a certificate provider for a lasting power of attorney

The Mental Capacity Act 2005 enables an individual (the donor) to give authority to one or more people (the attorneys) to make decisions on their behalf concerning their health, welfare, property or...

Capacity to execute a lasting power of attorney

Executing an LPA means to create and register the instrument so that it becomes effective. The Mental Capacity Act 2005, section 9(2)(c), requires that at the time a person executes an LPA they are...

Health and care lasting power of attorney: key features

An LPA allows capable adults to nominate one or more people to act on their behalf if they are unable to make decisions themselves at some point in the future..

Statutory reform of the death certification process in England and Wales

There has been little change to the death registration process for over 50 years. Registrars relied on the MCCD issued by a single attending doctor to proceed with certification. Only cases referred...

A professional and legal duty to keep up to date

It will be impossible for any nurse or doctor to analyse everything that is relevant to their clinical practice area. They do, however, owe patients a legal duty of care and part of this will be the...

Key requirements for obtaining valid informed consent to treatment

‘The right to determine what shall be done with one's own body is a fundamental right in our society. The concepts inherent in this right are the bedrock upon which the principles of...

Is it right to talk about patient safety rights?

In the legal literature the subject of rights is a hotly debated one. Many legal theorists in a subject area called jurisprudence and elsewhere have debated the matter. It is a useful exercise to look...