What is ‘mental capacity’?

If you have mental capacity, you can make decisions for yourself. The law says that you lack mental capacity if you can’t make a decision for yourself because of some impairment of, or disturbance in, functioning of the mind or brain.

Someone is deemed to be incapable of making decisions for themselves if they cannot:

• understand the information relevant to the decision,
• retain that information,
• use or weigh that information as part of the process of making the decision, or
• communicate their decision (whether by talking, using sign language or any other means).

Some people have the capacity to make some decisions for themselves but not others.