I spend a fair proportion of my time dealing with both lasting power of attorney and Court of Protection work, both of which bring me into contact with local GP practices, whose doctors act as certificate providers and assess mental capacity on court form COP3.

I have found that there is a definite trend for doctors to charge higher and higher fees for doing such work, which culminated in one practice demanding £175 to complete a COP3 for a pensioner who qualified for a full exemption of the actual court fee.

On making further enquiries on the British Medical Association (BMA) website, I found the following advice in their guidance publication (fees guidance schedule 6 – miscellaneous agreed fees April 2008): ‘Despite discussions being held with the Office of the Public Guardian no fee has been agreed in respect of the new COP3 form and, as a result, the BMA is advising that individual doctors should establish their own fees for the completion of the COP3 form.’

There is huge potential for abuse of this discretion and a few greedy doctors could put the reputation of their profession at risk.

I am completely at a loss as to how the BMA and the Office of Public Guardian could fail to reach a consensus on a fee for such a structured document as the COP3.

Derek Peedell, T M Warner & Co, Kidlington, Oxon