This free course, Understanding mental capacity, describes the principles and criteria underpinning the assessment of mental capacity and decision making in the UK. The course begins by looking at what mental capacity – and the lack of it – means. You will be introduced to various groups of people who are more likely to lack mental capacity, but you will also learn why it is relevant to everyone. You will look at what can be done to help someone to make a decision themselves and the principles and steps that enable people to judge, fairly, whether someone has capacity or not. You will be introduced to the legislation in the UK and will see how it supports and protects people who may lack capacity.

After studying this course, you should be able to:

• understand what is meant by mental capacity
• apply your knowledge about mental capacity to different scenarios and outline how to support and/or assess capacity for decision making in each case
• outline what is involved in a mental capacity assessment
• identify what you would like to do next in relation to mental capacity in your personal life and/or career.