Updating the Toolkit for Assessing Capacity

The Toolkit for Assessing Capacity is a clinical, legal and practical guide for health practitioners and lawyers when assessing an adult’s capacity to make decisions. It provides a three-step method for carrying out a capacity assessment when deciding whether an individual has capacity to make legal decisions (such as consent to treatment or property decisions or making a will) and how they may be supported to make decisions.

About the project

Alison Douglass, a Barrister specialising in health and disability law together with co-authors, Dr Greg Young, Consultant Psychiatrist, and Professor John McMillan, Ethicist at the University of Otago Ōtākou Whakaihu Waka are updating the Toolkit for Assessing Capacity.  A short practice guidance, initially written as part of Alison’s international research fellowship awarded by the New Zealand Law Foundation and published in 2016, the Toolkit provides a practical guide to assessing capacity.  Both the Toolkit and the co-authors book, Assessment of Mental Capacity: A New Zealand Guide for Doctors and Lawyers (2020) have had a significant practical impact on how health professionals and lawyers consider a person’s capacity for decision-making. This project is timely as Te Aka Matua o te Ture/ the Law Commission has just released its Second Issues Paper on review of Adult Decision-Making Capacity Law, Ngā Huarahi Whakatau and proposed reform of the law. The Toolkit has become a best practice standard and established a core legal test for capacity recognised in case law and Health and Disability Commissioner decisions.   It is also used for teaching medical students, other health professionals and lawyers. This grant has enabled Alison to be supported to take time out of practice and base herself as a visitor at Edinburgh Law School, University of Edinburgh.

Grant amount

$20,000 for work in 2024

About Alison Douglass

Alison Douglass is a barrister based in Dunedin Ōtepoti and specialises in health and disability law, and appears as court-appointed lawyer for people with impaired capacity in the Family and appellate courts.

Contact

Alison Douglass, Barrister, Barristers Chambers, Dunedin / Kate Sheppard Chambers alison.douglass@barristerschambers.co.nz www.alisondouglass.co.nz https://katesheppardchambers.co.nz/alison-douglass