The May 2026 Mental Capacity Report is now out. Highlights this month include:
- In the Health, Welfare and Deprivation of Liberty Report: Townsend updated, sex before the Court of Protection again, and a profoundly disturbing report on dementia in acute hospitals;
- In the Property and Affairs Report: new OPG investigation requirements and the consequences thereof;
- In the Practice and Procedure Report: importance guidance on instructing experts, when habitual residence can be revisited, and a very useful new book on coercive control;
- In the Mental Health Matters Report: the legal gaps for those in mental health crisis in ED and misunderstandings of the MCA in the mental health context;
- In the Children’s Capacity Report: deprivation of liberty of children in statute and in unregulated placements and what procedural fairness (does) not require in assessment;
- In the Wider Context Report: the MCA and suicide, and new guidance on consenting to clinical trials;
- In the Scotland Report: an update on the new AWI accreditation programme being run by the Law Society of Scotland.
We offer our hearty congratulations to Sir Stephen Cobb on his appointment as President of the Family Division and of the Court of Protection. For anyone who wants reassurance that the new President truly ‘gets’ the Mental Capacity Act, we suggest reading his judgment in the case of ‘Stitch,’ his last decision as a Tier 3 judge of the Court of Protection.
You can find our past issues, our case summaries, and more on our dedicated sub-site here, where you can also sign up to the Mental Capacity Report.
A walkthrough of the Report can be found here.
