I was surprised by this
I am involved in the discussion and analysis relating to End-of-Life patients who are within their own homes, and as part of that I wish to understand what GPs and District Nurses consider the correct interpretation of the Mental Capacity Act is, in respect of the duties that Act imposes not on clinicians, but on a patient's relatives who are living with him.
I was somewhat surprised, during my Champions search, to discover only 3 GPs ! And of those 3, only 2 can be e-mailed.
This seems a little odd, considering the large number of Champions overall ?
That is shockingly low, Do you have any idea's as to how we can get more GP's involved in the campaign?
Have you seen Scie's EOLC guide?
http://www.scie.org.uk/publications/briefings/briefing10/index.asp
I am not sure if I have seen Scie's EoLC guide, as I tend to concentrate on material publsihed about ADRTs, and on CPR/VoD protocols - I don't think the Mental Capacity Act is correctly interpreted in current clinical guidance.
But it is remarkably difficult to get clinicians to explain what they believe, and why. Neither of the 2 GPs replied to my e-mail, but then again almsot nobody does. I suspect, this could be down to a lack of confidence in the validity of people's beliefs, but unless you can establish what people believe, it is impossible to actually check !
I don't know how to persuade clinicians to be more open, and to discuss things more widely !
I can't get either the GSF or LCP teams to discuss their publications, which bothers me quite a lot: other clinicians believe such guidance 'must be correct' and I think parts of it are flawed.
Sorry about my typing and proof-reading above - both are typically awful !
Odimegwu, I have just followed the link you provided. My initial comment is that it references a lot of documents which have a date prior to 2005, which was the year the Mental Capacity Act came into force.
But my main problem, will probably be that I disagree with the interpretation of the MCA, within some of that guidance. As the lecturer/nurse who is in my discussion group recently commented, in connection with clinical beliefs about the MCA:
'I still do not fully understand why this is such a mess and difficult to understand. However, I do agree that people do not understand and that is mainly down to how it was explained to them - rather than looking it up and understanding it for themselves. Also a lot of legal teaching is done by people without a legal qualification or by people who are solicitors (Trust solicitors usually look for how to protect the Trust and therefore bias is evident in teaching) without any understanding of clinical context. It all makes for a bit of a mess.'
I agree with her - my own e-mail out, had said 'I don't understand why this is such a mess, and so hard for people to grasp !' - and basically some of us are 'at odds' with most clinical groups, about certain aspects of the MCA.
Sorry it took me far too long to spot your reply to me, Odimegwu, but I am not online at home, and my online time tends to be limited - even so, I'm not sure why it took me so long to spot ! Apologies !