Adult Social Care Glossary, v 0.6

The SCIE definition includes "Preventing the person from making their own decisions". A social worker (with an integrated hospital team background) commented as follows on the definition of Capacity:

"A person's mental capacity may fluctuate over time and may vary depending on the decision to be made. This isn't always understood or recognised by health professionals, although the definitions [of Capacity in this glossary] are reasonably consistent about it. This can lead to people being inappropriately prevented from making decisions which they do have the capacity to make."