Misuse of the Mental Capacity Act: ‘you have capacity to end your life and there is nothing we can do about it’

Abstract

One of the central tenets of the Mental Capacity Act 2005 is ‘assume capacity’, which aims to enshrine the rights of adults to make decisions about their social and medical care. In this article, Jane Fisher explores how the principle of assumed capacity is often misappropriated, misunderstood and misapplied when attending to mental health service users with suicidal ideation.