Mental Capacity

Matt Firestone made this Freedom of Information request to Care Quality Commission This request has been closed to new correspondence. Contact us if you think it should be reopened.

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Dear Care Quality Commission,

I am writing to you to request information relating to policies and procedures which relate to compliance with the Mental Capacity Act 2005 and how you assess both ambulance and hospitals against adhering to its codes of practice.

Do you have any information on the following:
a) Policies and procedures relating to supporting patients who lack mental capacity or evidence of best working practices
b) how do you ask for evidence of staff training and awareness of mental capacity
c) do you suggest clinical guidelines that relate to managing/supporting patients who lack mental capacity.

Yours faithfully,

Matt Firestone

Dear Mr Firestone

I acknowledge receipt of your correspondence dated 15 November 2021, in
which you made a request for information.

Your request is as follows:

“I am writing to you to request information relating to policies and
procedures which relate to compliance with the Mental Capacity Act 2005
and how you assess both ambulance and hospitals against adhering to its
codes of practice.

Do you have any information on the following:

a) Policies and procedures relating to supporting patients who lack mental
capacity or evidence of best working practices

b) how do you ask for evidence of staff training and awareness of mental
capacity

c) do you suggest clinical guidelines that relate to managing/supporting
patients who lack mental capacity.”

CQC will consider your request in accordance with the Freedom of
Information Act 2000 (FOIA).

Our statutory deadline for response is 13 December 2021, but we will in
any event endeavour to respond as soon as possible.

We will write to you if we are unable to meet this deadline.

Please be aware that there may be a delay in providing a response to your
request for information. The Information Access team are experiencing a
higher than usual workload at present due to the pandemic situation. We
are currently working through a backlog of work and will respond to each
request as soon as possible. We thank you for your patience.

The information you have requested may be subject to an exemption from the
right to know. Should this occur, we will explain the reasons why when we
respond.

Regards

On behalf of:

Information Access Team

For information about CQC, including contact details, information about
how we use and protect personal data, and how to request information from
us, go to [1]https://www.cqc.org.uk/contact-us

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References

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BG Assessing mental health care in ambulance services.pdf

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Dear Mr Firestone

Our Ref: CQC IAT 2122 0702

I write in response to your correspondence of 15 November 2021 in which
you requested the following information:

Do you have any information on the following:

a) Policies and procedures relating to supporting patients who lack mental
capacity or evidence of best working practices

b) how do you ask for evidence of staff training and awareness of mental
capacity

c) do you suggest clinical guidelines that relate to managing/supporting
patients who lack mental capacity.”

The Information Access team has now coordinated a response to your
request.  

CQC has considered your request in accordance with the Freedom of
Information Act 2000 (FOIA).  

Our first obligation under the legislation is to confirm whether we do or
do not hold the requested information.  

In accordance with section 1(1) of FOIA we are able to confirm that CQC
does hold recorded information in relation to this matter.  

CQC is the independent regulator of health and social care services in
England; including the regulation of registered provider’s use of the
Mental Capacity Act (MCA) which we do through our regulatory approach. The
regulations (in this case [1]Regulation 11 of the Health and Social Care
Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014) set out that providers
registered with CQC must comply with the Mental Capacity Act and its code
of practice. This includes hospitals and ambulances (NHS and
independent).

CQC inspects against the MCA as one of our ‘key lines of enquiry’ - these
can be found on our
website: [2]https://www.cqc.org.uk/guidance-provider....
It is at this point that we will be talking to providers, managers and
staff, checking records where appropriate and observing care given (more
detail on this is included in the brief guide linked below on capacity and
competence to consent in under 18s). Compliance with the MCA forms part of
our decision-making when rating all the services for people aged 16+ that
we regulate.

As part of our monitoring and inspection process, CQC may ask to see the
guidance that providers are using in their day to day work in our
assessment of compliance with the regulations. The same is true of CQC
taking a view on training that staff may have had. CQC does
produce [3]some guidance for providers in England on complying with the
Mental Capacity Act (see link). We also have the following brief guides
for inspectors which is published on our website:

· [4]Brief guide for inspection teams: Assessing how providers
implement the Mental Capacity Act

· [5]Brief guide for inspection teams: Capacity and competence to
consent in under 18s

· Brief guide for inspection teams: Assessing mental healthcare in
ambulance services (please note this is not published on our website but
is enclosed with this response. Please also note it is currently
undergoing a routine review and update)  

During the pandemic, we have had to use alternative methods for monitoring
and regulating services, more information is available on our website
here: [6]Our monitoring approach: what to expect | Care Quality Commission
(cqc.org.uk). However, where we have significant concerns, we will always
inspect through site visit.  As well as other services, this page provides
further links to what is included in our monitoring approach for:

· [7]Acute healthcare services (NHS)

· [8]Ambulance services (NHS and independent)

· [9]Independent acute healthcare services

· [10]Mental health services (NHS and independent).

We publish information every year on the implementation of the Mental
Capacity Act Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DoLS) in our
annual [11]State of Care report. This includes reporting on examples of
good and poor practice. See our latest report that was published last
month on our website
here: [12]https://www.cqc.org.uk/publications/majo...

CQC routinely assesses how providers of registered services use clinical
guidelines in the delivery of care and treatment, including how registered
providers comply with the MCA and its code of practice. Clinical
guidelines which providers may use include those developed by the National
Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) and other
professional/clinical bodies. For example, CQC consider the processes
providers use to ensure they are following NICE guidance such as [13]NICE
guideline [NG108] Decision-making and mental capacity.

I hope this information is of assistance to you.

Feedback 

CQC will always endeavour to provide high quality responses to requests
for information and seek to be as helpful as possible. We would therefore
appreciate if you can take some time to complete our online feedback form
by visiting the following link: 

[14]https://surveys.cqc.org.uk/InformationAc...

 Any information you provide will be held securely and only used for the
purposes of improving the Information Rights service that CQC provides. 

Yours sincerely 

On behalf of:

Information Access Officer

Telephone: 03000 616161

For information about CQC, including contact details, information about
how we use and protect personal data, and how to request information from
us, go to [15]https://www.cqc.org.uk/contact-us

References

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