Many people with moderate or severe dementia are recommended for residential care at the same time as they are assessed as no longer having legal capacity to consent to this care. Often, they have not anticipated this situation and have not appointed anyone to be their Enduring Power of Attorney.

Consequently, families, clinicians and residential care providers are confronted with people with dementia needing to go into long-term care, but with a lack of clarity around the legal authority to facilitate this. This situation risks either long hospital stays, or having to remain in unsatisfactory living circumstances while a legal basis for proceeding is sought. There is often dispute over which party should take responsibility for those proceedings.

This seminar focusses on this situation, and looks at the use of the Mental Health (Compulsory Assessment and Treatment) Act, the Protection of Personal and Property Rights Act and the Code of Health and Disability Services Consumers’ Rights. We hope to find consensus through discussion about how and when each of these legal processes can be employed, seeking to provide what is in the person’s best interests. We will also consider the principles that underpin New Zealand’s wider legislative framework and its international treaty obligations relating to human rights and detention.Finally, there will be a presentation on proposed liberty safeguards for people who lack capacity, in light of international developments, with a view to filling this gap in our legal framework, so that it is better designed and more user-friendly in the future.

Download the flyer (PDF, 766 KB) for speaker information, programme, registration form and map.