Clause 35 - Duty to seek advice in connection with serious medical treatment
Mental Capacity Bill
12:00 pm
Mr Tim Boswell (Shadow Minister, Home Affairs; Daventry, Conservative)
I beg to move amendment No. 49, in
clause 35, page 20, line 2, after 'body' insert
'or other registered medical practitioner'.
The amendment follows on rather neatly from the group of the amendments that we have just discussed. My concern when I tabled it was to anticipate circumstances in which the medical treatment sought might be carried out by a private doctor or by a private doctor under some contract or other arrangement with the NHS. The Minister has already explained the need to be able to reach into the private sector to access information. I do not want to open up issues about privatisation or otherwise in the NHS, but I would like her assurance that if it was appropriate for private services to be sought, there would be some means of ensuring that independent consultation could be required, because otherwise the safeguards to the person without capacity would be diminished and might in certain cases lead to people who did not have their best interests at heart actually choosing the private route for no other motive than to avoid the independent consultation or controls.