The Mental Capacity Bill contains many more provisions of concern for professionals and carers than those which Jacqueline Laing mentions (see [2004] Gazette, 25 November, 12). The Bill will create lasting powers of attorney (LPA), in place of enduring powers of attorney (EPA).


LPAs will, in certain circumstances, give attorneys power to make decisions concerning the donor's health and welfare. EPAs have been helpful and a boon for caring families, but they have also given grasping attorneys ample scope for asset stripping. Everyone who deals with the affairs of elderly clients has experienced families who manipulate elderly relatives in their finances. The Master of the Court of Protection has estimated that up to 15% of registered EPAs are abused. The opportunity for abuse by LPA attorneys, who will be able to refuse medical treatment on behalf of the donor, is obvious.


Advance directives relating to treatment are to be given legal force by this Bill but only in relation to refusals of treatment. To claim that this Bill has nothing to do with euthanasia is absurd when the legalisation of advance directives has long been one of the major policy aims of the proponents of euthanasia.


These concerns, added to those mentioned by Ms Laing - non-therapeutic research on non-consenting mentally incapacitated people and the real threat of mentally incapacitated people being starved and dehydrated to death - show what a pernicious piece of legislation this Bill will be. It will usher into our society legalised euthanasia and involuntary euthanasia at that. One can only hope that its worst provisions may yet be amended by Parliament before it becomes law.


Robin Haig, Wilmslow