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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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| Capacity to consent in dementia and the additional costs of implementing the Bournewood Judgement in geriatric psychiatry | | Author(s) | A Shah, S Foli, K Odutoye |
| Journal title | Aging & Mental Health, vol 3, no 2, May 1999 |
| Pages | pp 153-157 |
| Source | http://www.tandfonline.com |
| Keywords | Dementia ; Psychogeriatric patients ; Rights [elderly] ; Admission [hospitals] ; Psychogeriatric units ; Costs [care]. |
| Annotation | Traditionally, patients with dementia who do not dissent, have been formally admitted to psychiatric wards in the UK. The recent Court of Appeal judgment (R v Bournewood Mental Health Trust ex parte L) suggested that patients lacking the capacity to consent to inpatient psychiatric care should be admitted under the Mental Health Act irrespective of absence of dissent. On appeal, this judgment was overturned by the House of Lords. The marginal and new additional costs of implementing the Bournewood Judgment in clinical practice were estimated to illustrate the resource implications of legislative changes in the wider context of capacity to consent in dementia. The additional annual cost of implementing the Judgment in the authors' geriatric psychiatric unit of a London district general hospital with a catchment area of 23,000 older people was estimated in the range of £6,670 to £13,340. The extrapolated national costs using two techniques were in the range of £8,695,000 to £17,416,000 and £2,255,000 to £5,110,000, respectively. The potential implications of the additional costs due to legislative changes on the already precarious geriatric psychiatry services is discussed in the context of consent in dementia. (RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-990715230 A |
| Classmark | EA: LF:E: IKR: LD:QKH: LDM: QDC |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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