Mental capacity

[Rog22]

A few weeks ago the social worker said that my aunty lacked capacity.
This stopped us from setting up an LPA (she had written an EPA for my father who has died).
Therefore, I started filling in the COP forms.
Everytime I visited my aunty, she was ok, and her neighbour said the same thing - a bit confused about time, how long she had been there etc., but she knew what was going on.
Yesterday, the psychogeriatrician from the hospital saw her. He rang me & told me that she certainly had capacity when he spoke to her & that I could go ahead with an LPA as long as she understood at the the time that she signed it.
I've done all that online today, paid and printed them out.
Does this mean that the doctors word beats the social workers word? The social worker never gave us any paperwork regarding capacity & ignored all emails about DoLS and whether our aunty had a representative.
Does anyone think I'm doing the right thing by going down the LPA route rather than COP? It's all very confusing, and she's not happy where she is.

 

[canary]

If you can get POA then it makes life much easier than COP. Capacity is a tricksy thing and during the time when it is being lost seems to come and go, so she could easily have shown different responses on different days. It is correct that so long as she understands and consents at the time of signing, then the POA is legal. I do hope it all goes through.

 

[jenniferpa]

My feeling is that canary is spot on with regard to this.

The truth is: capacity can be variable from day to day (or even minute to minute sometimes) so while a person might not have capacity at one point, they might well have it at another. The reality is, provided you don't have some relative on the background arguing that your aunt doesn't have capacity it is likely that the LPA will go through. In truth, if you had applied for deputyship, and there wasn't this speculative pesky relative, that would have gone through as well.

 

[Pete R]

A few weeks ago the social worker said that my aunty lacked capacity.................................

I had the same problem with a SW who did not understand that the test she carried out only meant my Mom did not have capacity at that particular time. I had already sent off the LPA and was told it would not be valid.

I made a complaint and saw her manger the next day. The report was never added to Mom's file, Mom got a new SW and the LPA was registered.

I hope it goes through smoothly for you and your Aunty.

 

[Rog22]

Thanks for that. I'm going to go & see her today & hopefully she'll sign it and we can get on with finding her somewhere nice.

The doctor (psychogeriatrician) said that they had "care navigators" at the hospital. I'm wondering whether to get in touch with one of those as a main point of contact as the social worker hasn't been very helpful.

 

[Countryboy]

When I have had various mental memory test i may have low scores but that only because I didn't understand some of the test , I therefore alway either asked them questions about a subject I knew well to prove my point when they couldn't answer , also my general knowledge is poor all my life I have only been interested in learning or remembering things that meant something to me , have I got capacity yes could I answer questions probably not