What do newly appointed health staff know about the Mental Capacity Act (2005)?

The study aimed to assess the extent of knowledge of the Mental Capacity Act (MCA) (2005) among new recruits to a National Health Service (NHS) Trust.

Respondents were assessed before and after a brief training experience.

Data were collected while respondents attended their mandatory Trust induction training.

Assessment was by means of a 16-item true-false questionnaire.

While respondents' knowledge appeared reasonably good for some important features of the MCA, these results may have been exaggerated by a strong tendency to respond 'true', which persisted despite instructions intended to counteract it. Some significant areas of ignorance were also identified. Scores showed a small but significant improvement when participants were reassessed following a 10-minute talk on the MCA; the improvements were specific to certain items that were included in the training presentation. There were no significant differences in performance between non-clinical staff, naive clinicians and clinicians who reported having previously received training on the MCA.

Knowledge of the MCA among newly appointed NHS staff is patchy, with some strengths but also significant weaknesses. The results demonstrate a benefit of the brief training experience, but also question how much information is retained by participants in MCA training.