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Personal Independence payment for client lacking insight into their own mental health problems

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Dan_Manville
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Mental health & welfare rights service - Wolverhampton City Council

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Total Posts: 2262

Joined: 15 October 2012

ClairemHodgson - 03 August 2017 04:09 PM

is that about them failing to be aware that capacity can differ depending on the complexity of the decisions required/ability to understand the issues/etc?
....

That’s my belief.

I’ll often see people who are assessed as having capacity to consent to treatment but are so paranoid about DWP etc that it impairs their capacity to engage with them so I can do it for them as it’s in their best interests; they can’t weigh up the information presented to them. I make the decision so I conduct the assessment.

The number of times I’ve heard “but they’ve got capacity!”. In one notable example the person thought we were part of the consiracy; they put on a good front when discussing life in general but ask them to sign anything and they broke down into gibbering rage. Because of that good front it took years for The Powers That Be to accept that they didn’t have capacity to deal with their financial affairs. It was rather frustrating that whenever a formal capacity assessment was conducted the assessors didn’t say “would you just sign this for me”. Life could have been sooooo much easier.

As an aside; it’s funny working in a role where some people don’t want your help, it’s been difficult to parse that!