Alex Ruck Keene
@Capacitylaw
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Barrister, writer and educator: mental capacity, mental health and healthcare ethics. Twitter used to share news; please email me: [email protected].
Joined June 2014
I lurk on Twitter from time to time but I only use it to share material from my website - it’s too compressed to use for comments. If you want to ask questions (and I like questions!) please email me at alex.ruckkeene@39essex.com.
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SCIE sounds the alarm on MCA reform – Mental Capacity Law and Policy:
mentalcapacitylawandpolicy.org.uk
The Social Care Institute for Excellence is not normally an alarmist body, which makes its recent (26 August 2025) statement on MCA reform all the more striking. I reproduce the material sections …
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“There are more things in heaven and earth that are dreamt of in the philosophy of NHS treatment” – a Court of Protection story:
mentalcapacitylawandpolicy.org.uk
The flipside of the intense focus on the wishes, feelings, beliefs and values of the person required by s.4 MCA 2005, as clarified by the Supreme Court in Aintree v James, is that there may be situ…
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I’m speaking on mental capacity and suicide at CC Live 2025. Not the jolliest of topics, but increasingly important in the context of the Mental Health Bill and the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill: hope to see you there
invt.io
Register your place now
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RT @sarasiobhan: So excited my new book is out tomorrow. 20% discount code: 25AFLY2*.
routledge.com
This empirically grounded book presents a critical, interdisciplinary perspective on social and cultural issues related to the health and wellbeing of people with learning disabilities. Through an...
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When does a Court of Protection order do more harm than good? Anorexia, the Court of Protection, and the ‘impossible burden’:
mentalcapacitylawandpolicy.org.uk
Patricia’s Father & Ors v Patricia & Ors [2025] EWCOP 30 (T3) is a challenging case at a number of levels, over and above the human tragedy at the centre of it. Procedurally, it highl…
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Gillick is not a universal test – an important clarification from the Court of Appeal:
mentalcapacitylawandpolicy.org.uk
For years, lawyers and clinicians have thrown around the term ‘Gillick competence’ as if it were a universal test to apply to analyse the decision-making abilities of children. More recently, the…
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Tracking down the abducted ‘P’ – a menu of options for Court of Protection practitioners:
mentalcapacitylawandpolicy.org.uk
The Court of Protection on occasion has to deal with those who are determined to stymie its jurisdiction. In Kirk v Devon County Council [2017] EWCA Civ 34, Sir James Munby, through gritted teeth,…
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Anorexia, the Mental Health Act and the Court of Protection – a clear route map for cases:
mentalcapacitylawandpolicy.org.uk
In Leeds and York Partnership NHS Foundation Trust v FF & Anor [2025] EWCOP 26 (T3), McKendrick J made some very helpful observations about how the courts should proceed in a case where clinici…
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The Court of Protection (Amendment) Rules 2025 - changes to transparency in committal proceedings:
mentalcapacitylawandpolicy.org.uk
These Rules were laid before Parliament on 15 July, and come into force on 1 October 2025. They make a number of changes in relation to committal proceedings, especially to pick up the problems id…
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39 Essex Chambers July Mental Capacity Report now out - and walkthrough:
mentalcapacitylawandpolicy.org.uk
The July 2025 Mental Capacity Report is now out. Highlights this month include: (1) In the Health, Welfare and Deprivation of Liberty Report: what to do when an advance decision to refuse treatmen…
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Joint Committee on Human Rights inquiry into the human rights of children in the social care system:
mentalcapacitylawandpolicy.org.uk
The Joint Committee on Human Rights has announced an inquiry into the human rights of children in the social care system. It will have a particular focus on children in care but wider aspects of t…
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Providing position statements to observers to Court of Protection proceedings: vital guidance from Poole J:
mentalcapacitylawandpolicy.org.uk
Re AB (Disclosure of Position Statements) [2025] EWCOP 25 (T3) concerns a question of increasing importance given (in particular) the sterling work of the Open Justice Court of Protection Project: …
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Disordered eating and the gaps between services – the consequences for the Court of Protection:
mentalcapacitylawandpolicy.org.uk
Cwm Taf Morgannwg Health Board v AB & Anor [2025] EWCOP 24 (T3) is a judgment about case management in a very difficult case involving a 17 year old with profoundly disordered eating. As CD, t…
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Habitual residence, moving jurisdictions and ‘lawful authority’:
mentalcapacitylawandpolicy.org.uk
In Re A (Habitual Residence) [2025] EWCOP 22 (T2), HHJ Millar set out a helpful worked example of determining whether a person’s habitual residence has changed following a loss of capacity, and whe…
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Capacity in the rear view mirror – how does the presumption work?
mentalcapacitylawandpolicy.org.uk
The problem of the retrospective consideration of capacity troubled Costs Judge Whalan in Furley Page LLP v KFL [2025] EWHC 1703 (SCCO). The question arose in relation to the detailed assessment o…
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200 pages down on proofs for the @LegalActionGrp Court of Protection Handbook 5th edition. Quite a few more to go (with bonus child art in the background).
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The Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill and the NHS 10 Year Plan:
mentalcapacitylawandpolicy.org.uk
This can be a very short post. Those reading Fit for the Future: 10 Year Health Plan for England published on 3 July 2025 with an eye to understanding how the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) B…
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Reposting this from last year as this issue keeps coming up: why thinking about capacity in the abstract is usually so unhelpful:
mentalcapacitylawandpolicy.org.uk
In response to a question posed by the excellent Zena Bolwig on LinkedIn, an interesting discussion has broken out about whether you need to have capacity to consent to having your capacity assesse…
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Cross border mental capacity frameworks: new joint information note from the Law Societies of Scotland and England & Wales:
mentalcapacitylawandpolicy.org.uk
In a coincidence of timing (both projects having been started and running independently, albeit with two common joint participants [fn]), the recent publication of the new pan-UK protocol for judic…
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