Clause 35 - Duty to seek advice in connection with serious medical treatment
Mental Capacity Bill
12:00 pm
Ms Rosie Winterton (Minister of State, Department of Health; Doncaster Central, Labour)
Under the clause, the NHS bodies have a duty to consult the independent consultee. The amendment relates to the question of whether the duty to consult the independent consultee should fall on all registered medical practitioners working in the independent sector. There is a duty to consult if the treatment is arranged by, funded by, and provided in the independent sector. In other words, the independent consultee safeguard will be provided if it is provided, arranged and paid for by the NHS. However, it is very difficult for us to fund safeguards for all practitioners in the independent sector.
The situation is also very unlikely to arise because it is difficult to envisage how the independent sector could provide an unbefriended and incapacitated person with serious medical treatment that was then
funded privately without the involvement of a lasting power of attorney, a deputy, friend or relative, or social services.
The amendment is unnecessary, because it is almost impossible to envisage a situation in which such treatment could be provided, bringing in, in an unbefriended situation, the independent consultee, without there being somebody else involved. When we consider possible disputes, I can examine whether that might be an appropriate time to bring in somebody, as the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton suggested. At this stage, however, it is extremely unlikely that such a situation would arise.