Consent to Care & Treatment Policy

Seven Steps Support Limited has a strict Consent to care and Treatment policy had all staff must adhere to. Valid consent must be obtained from all our clients before starting care, treatment or personal care. Consent must be given voluntary and not under any form of duress or undue influence from Seven Steps Support Limited, Health professionals, family, family or others.

Consent must be given by an appropriately informed person who has the capacity to consent to the treatment or care in question, this person could include the client, someone who has parental responsibility, the courts. If there is a best interest in place for the client in question Social workers, doctors and family will be involved in consenting to care and treatment if the client lacks the capacity to make this decision.

The client needs to give written, oral or verbal consent to care and treatment. A signature on a consent form does not make consent valid.

Our clients need to be given sufficient information before they can decide to give consent e.g. information regarding the risks to the client as well as the benefits from receiving the care in question. This information needs to be given to our client in a form our client understands for example:

• Accessible documents – Written & Picture format;
• Speech;
• Makaton;
• Sign language;
• Photographic or video footage.

Consent must to be an on-going process rather than a one off decisions and clients must be given to opportunity to ask further questions, review the decision or be given alternative methods of care.

All staff must be given written verbal or implied consent before giving any form of care, treatment or personal care. Implied consent would be where a person visiting a doctors holds there arm out for a blood test, this is giving consent. Before consent is given our client must understand what they are giving consent for.

Clients can be confident that their human rights are respected and taken in account during our support.

Best Interests

The Mental Capacity Act sets out a checklist of things to consider when deciding what’s in a person’s best interests. You should:

• Not make assumptions on the basis of age, appearance, condition or behavior.
• Consider all the relevant circumstances.
• Consider whether or when the person will have capacity to make the decision.
• Support the person’s participation in any acts or decisions made for them.
• Not make a decision about life-sustaining treatment “motivated by a desire to bring about his (or her) death”.
• Consider the person’s expressed wishes and feelings, beliefs and values.
• Take into account the views of others with an interest in the person’s welfare, their careers and those appointed to act on their behalf.

Under the Mental Capacity Act a person is presumed to make their own decisions “unless all practical steps to help him (or her) to make a decision have been taken without success”. Every person should be presumed to be able to make their own decisions. You can only take a decision for someone else if all practical steps to help them to make a decision have been taken without success. For example, someone might have the capacity to walk into a shop and buy a CD but not to go into an estate agent and purchase a property. Incapacity is not based on the ability to make a wise or sensible decision.

They will continue to make decisions about their own lives whenever possible, or be included in such decisions as much as possible at all other times:

• If decisions have to be made on their behalf, they are always made in their best interests.
• Care, treatment and support services and their staff are aware of their duties and responsibilities under the Act.
• Their human rights will be respected.
• Where a client lacks capacity, a best interests meeting will be held with people who know and understand the client using our service
• We respect the right of the client to have an advocate to assist them in understanding their options and enable them to make an informed decision.
• We respect the right of all our clients who use our service to withdraw any consent given.
• Each client is given an individual client contract

Responsibilities of all employees

• Every employee has a personal responsibility to obtain consent for the care and treatment provided to each client.
• Every employee must attend all training.
• An employee who becomes aware that NO consent has been given should bring the matter to the attention of their manager.