Page 4 | When is a health lasting power of attorney useful?

tonbridgecat · 2025-12-09T20:52:51+00:00

Hello Slightly depressing topic but when are lasting powers of attorney for health useful? I think the donor has to have lost capacity for the LPA to come into play, but what does the LPA enable the attorney to do? agree treatment? Agree admission to a care home? Sort out care packages? thank you.

Periperi2025 · 11/12/2025 08:37

PollyPlumPeach · 10/12/2025 23:56

This is completely unworkable, unless you have a consultant psychiatrist on retainer whom you have paid privately to undertake a capacity assessment whenever you need one. An NHS consultant psychiatrist is not going to come running every time you need a capacity assessment just because you put it in your LPA. Nor would it help in your situation

If you are adamantly against care home admission, you can put this in your LPA or as an advanced decision, making clear that you refuse to go into a care home even if it results in serious harm or death. Having a consultant psychiatrist assess your capacity would be pointless as they would not then be involved in the subsequent decision as to whether you go into a care home or not

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If you are going to mix documents you need to be very careful as the most recent document will override the previous one.

So if you set up a LPoA for health and welfare after the advanced directive, the person you assign as your advocate can override anything in you advanced directive. Which comes back to the point that the LPoA is only at good as the person you choose to act on your behalf.

hatgirl · 11/12/2025 09:01

OLDERME · 10/12/2025 22:57

I have experience of various Professionals being asked to assess capacity. Imo, they did not have the necessary training, nor understanding of the person to undertake the assessment in a complex situation. My family know that if my capacity is in question, either by an hospital or themselves, then a Consultant Psychiatrist must be involved. My main issue would be admission to a care home, which I am against.

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Sorry but this is completely unworkable and most likely will leave your family in an impossible position where they simply can't get a consultant psychiatrist to become involved just to make that decision. You can't just rock up and demand one gets involved it would be months on a waiting list if they even accepted a referral which for something like this they probably wouldn't because it's a want rather than a clinical need.

Capacity assessments where necessary should be completed by whichever professionals are involved at the time, have the fullest knowledge of the person and their circumstances and are who require the decision to be made. Some random consultant psychiatrist is unlikely to be considered the appropriate person.

If you are setting up health and welfare LPOA but tying the hands behind their backs of the people you give it to then it becomes an expensive piece of worthless paper. Just don't give them LPOA if you ultimately want professionals to make the decisions.

roundaboutthehillsareshining · 11/12/2025 09:24

Absolutely agree with @hatgirl! In the case of the elderly relative I used to support, it took weeks of the social worker working calmly with her to develop her trust and reduce her hostility before any attempt to assess her capacity could be made. It simply wasn't possible to assess her capacity in one meeting.

cannotmakedecisions · 11/12/2025 09:46

OLDERME · 10/12/2025 22:57

I have experience of various Professionals being asked to assess capacity. Imo, they did not have the necessary training, nor understanding of the person to undertake the assessment in a complex situation. My family know that if my capacity is in question, either by an hospital or themselves, then a Consultant Psychiatrist must be involved. My main issue would be admission to a care home, which I am against.

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You’re putting your attorneys in a different position, here.
Do you have sufficient funds for 24hr care at home long term if it’s needed?

tiatempo · 11/12/2025 22:27

NewspaperTaxis · 10/12/2025 23:16

I will répond to your onslaught some other time @tiatempo but @hatgirl is quite correct - I have been going on about these conspiracy theories for years, I usually back it up with newspaper cuttings from the mainstream press. Again, it's hardly wild stuff by any reckoning. And I will point out that Surrey County Council's Safeguarding teams have pointedly denied none of it.

I do have to wonder about you both however - I mean, have you ever heard of the Liverpool Care Pathway? Yes? No? Or Gosport War Memorial Hospital, which made the front pages of all newspapers in the summer of 2018 I think it was. Was all that a conpiracy theory? Did any of it happen? No charges re Gosport it emerged last month, though we know what happened. The police took its time investigating and what a surprise, no charges brought.

Can either of you tell me why my sister and I had to spend years literally taking it in turns to visit my mother in her care home to give her drink, while all our appeals fell on deaf ears? In fairness, it took me a while to figure it out, I thought they were just being obtuse. No, not a bit of it, they knew what they were doing and why.

I just find it incredible that you two make out you don't know what is going on, but I guess that's how institutions work isn't it, the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing.

Chill out though, there'll be no investigation into it.

I will bite. I am very passionate about what my team and I do. We enable people to make choices about how they want to spend time before death and where they die.

I have heard of LCP and Gosport. That doesn’t mean that everyone in health and social care is trying to kill everyone off. For example myself and the majority of my colleagues do not fully support the assisted dying bill.

As I said in my previous post we support the person and their family/friends/carers. This encompasses hundreds of people over my career to date. Again, I have never encountered what you claim but I have encountered people who have expectations that cannot be met with the evidenced based practice, years of experience and a wealth of knowledge that my colleagues and I have.

I wish you peace and hope that what ever you are searching for you find.