September 16, 2026
Mental Capacity Act 2005: A Plain-English Guide for Families and Carers
A parent with dementia refuses to let anyone help with their finances, even though bills are going unpaid. An adult with a learning disability wants to move in with a partner their family is worried about. A patient with a brain injury can’t communicate a decision about their own treatment. In every one of these situations, someone needs to work out a genuinely difficult question: can this person make this decision for themselves, and if not, who decides, and how? That’s exactly what the Mental Capacity Act 2005 exists to answer. It’s one of the most important pieces of legislation
