# What Is Capacity to Make Personal Welfare Decisions? | Nellie Supports Source: https://www.nelliesupports.com/guides/what-is-capacity-to-make-personal-welfare-decisions Canonical: https://www.nelliesupports.com/guides/what-is-capacity-to-make-personal-welfare-decisions Written by: Ben Slater Source review by: Kerry Slater Source review recorded: 2026-07-19 # What is capacity to make personal welfare decisions? Personal welfare includes care, residence, treatment and contact, but each decision requires its own capacity analysis. An opinion about one does not remove the person’s other decision-making rights. ## Author and Publication Author: Nellie Supports Ltd Publication Date: 15/05/2026 ​ ## Citation PC v City of York Council [2013] EWCA Civ 478. ## Copywright Copywright © 2026 Nellie Supports Ltd. All rights reserved. ​ This article is made available for general information, education and professional reference. It may be downloaded, printed and shared for non-commercial purposes, provided that it is reproduced in full, is not altered in any way, and is properly cited as the work of Nellie Supports Ltd. This material must not be edited, adapted, sold, republished, incorporated into commercial products, or used for commercial training, assessment, report-writing or advisory services without prior written permission from Nellie Supports Ltd. ​ This article does not constitute legal advice, clinical advice or a substitute for a decision-specific professional assessment. Where legislation, government guidance, court forms or external professional materials are referred to, those materials remain subject to their own copyright, licensing and re-use terms. ## About this guide Personal welfare includes care, residence, treatment and contact, but each decision requires its own capacity analysis. An opinion about one does not remove the person’s other decision-making rights. The sections below explain the evidence, practical steps and limits of the assessment or process. ## What’s on this page - [Contact](https://www.nelliesupports.com/guides/what-is-capacity-to-make-personal-welfare-decisions) - [Overview](https://www.nelliesupports.com/guides/what-is-capacity-to-make-personal-welfare-decisions) - [Frequently Asked Questions](https://www.nelliesupports.com/guides/what-is-capacity-to-make-personal-welfare-decisions) - [Related Pages](https://www.nelliesupports.com/guides/what-is-capacity-to-make-personal-welfare-decisions) Personal welfare covers the decisions that shape a person's daily life, including care and support, medical treatment, and contact with other people. It is assessed under the same statutory framework as financial decision making, but the relevant information is different, the evidence base is different and the consequences of getting it wrong are felt immediately rather than at some later point. This guide explains how personal welfare capacity is assessed and what a robust welfare capacity report should contain. ## What personal welfare decisions cover Personal welfare includes residence, care, treatment, contact and aspects of daily living. These are connected but distinct decisions with their own relevant information. Identify the actual question and time, and avoid a general finding that the person lacks all welfare capacity. An existing financial deputyship does not by itself determine any of these abilities. ## Why each welfare decision must be assessed separately There is no such thing as capacity for personal welfare in general. The Mental Capacity Act 2005 requires that capacity is assessed in relation to a specific decision at the time it needs to be made. A person may be able to decide who visits them but unable to weigh the risks of declining a particular treatment. They may be able to choose what to eat but unable to understand the consequences of refusing all care. An assessment which concludes that someone lacks capacity for personal welfare, without identifying which welfare decisions were actually assessed, is unlikely to withstand scrutiny and is one of the most common reasons welfare reports are questioned. ## Relevant information for care and support decisions For a care and support decision, the relevant information usually includes what care is being proposed, what the person's needs actually are, what would happen if the care were not provided, the practical alternatives available, who would deliver the care and how it would affect the person's daily life and independence. The information should be tailored to the person's real circumstances and options. It should not be drawn from a generic template, because a person can only be expected to understand and weigh the choices genuinely open to them. ## Relevant information for contact decisions Contact decisions are often the most emotionally charged and the most poorly assessed. The relevant information typically includes who the person is, the nature of the relationship, what contact would involve in practical terms, and the reasonably foreseeable benefits and risks of having or not having that contact. Assessors should be careful to distinguish between a person who cannot weigh the risks associated with a particular individual and a person who understands those risks perfectly well and has simply reached a decision that others regard as unwise. An unwise decision is not, on its own, evidence of incapacity. ## Relevant information for treatment decisions For treatment, the treating team should explain the nature, purpose, material benefits and risks, alternatives and foreseeable consequences of refusing or delaying. The information and support must fit the actual treatment and person. Serious consequences may require careful evidence, but the statutory test does not become a different threshold because a choice is risky or the person refuses recommended care. Check any valid and applicable advance decision or relevant legal authority separately. ## How personal welfare capacity differs from property and affairs capacity The statutory test is identical, but very little else is. Financial capacity is frequently evidenced through documents, bank records and transaction histories, whereas welfare capacity depends far more heavily on direct observation, on care records, and on the accounts of people who know the person. Welfare decisions also tend to recur rather than resolve, which means capacity may need to be revisited as circumstances change. A person may lack capacity to manage complex property and financial affairs whilst retaining capacity to decide who visits them, and it is a serious error to treat a finding on one as determining the other. ## Practicable steps and communication The Act requires that all practicable steps are taken to help a person make the decision before they are treated as unable to make it. In welfare matters this often makes the difference between a finding of capacity and a finding of incapacity. Practicable steps include assessing at the time of day when the person is at their best, using plain language and short sentences, presenting one element of the decision at a time, using visual aids or communication tools, involving a speech and language therapist or advocate where communication is impaired, and returning on a second occasion where presentation fluctuates. These steps should be recorded, because an assessment which does not evidence them is vulnerable to challenge. ## What a welfare capacity report should contain A robust report should identify the specific welfare decision or decisions assessed, the legal framework applied, the relevant information for each decision, the evidence reviewed, the practicable steps taken and the person's responses in their own words. It should then set out the functional analysis against understanding, retaining, using or weighing and communicating, identify any impairment of, or disturbance in the functioning of, the mind or brain, and explain the causative link between that impairment and the specific inability found. Where capacity is lacking, the report should be clear about what it does and does not conclude, so that any subsequent best interests process starts from an accurate position. ## Key takeaway Personal welfare capacity is not a single question and cannot be answered as one. The value of a welfare capacity report lies in the precision with which it names the decisions assessed, sets out the relevant information for each, evidences the support offered and explains how a specific impairment affects the person's ability to make that specific decision. Reports which conclude on personal welfare generally, or which rely on diagnosis in place of functional analysis, tend to create more difficulty than they resolve. ## Frequently asked questions ### Can someone have capacity for one welfare decision but not another? Yes, and this is common. Capacity is decision-specific. A person may be able to decide about contact whilst being unable to weigh the consequences of refusing a significant treatment. Each decision must be assessed and reported separately. ### Is refusing care evidence that someone lacks capacity? No. A person who understands the relevant information and can weigh it is entitled to make a decision others consider unwise. The question is whether the person can understand, retain, use or weigh the information and communicate a decision, not whether the outcome is one professionals would have chosen. ### Does a welfare finding also cover finances? No. Personal welfare and property and affairs are distinct, and a conclusion on one does not determine the other. Where both are in question, both must be assessed, and the report should address each separately. How often should welfare capacity be reviewed? Welfare decisions tend to recur and circumstances change, so capacity should be revisited where the decision arises again, where the person's condition changes, or where the available options materially alter. A finding is evidence of capacity at the time of assessment, not a permanent status. ## Related mental capacity assessment pages The related pages below explain connected decisions, evidence requirements and legal processes. ### Capacity for Health and Welfare Decisions ### Evidence needed for a residence capacity report ### Mental capacity assessment for DoLS and deprivation of liberty ### Read guide ## Practical next steps For a proposed welfare assessment, identify the particular care, contact, residence or treatment decision and who is responsible for it. Provide the real options, relevant records and communication needs. Agree any report’s scope and limits; an enquiry can use [https://www.nelliesupports.com/contact](https://www.nelliesupports.com/contact). Urgent treatment decisions should be addressed with the treating team. ## Primary sources and official guidance [Mental Capacity Act 2005](https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2005/9/contents) [Mental Capacity Act Code of Practice](https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/mental-capacity-act-code-of-practice) ## Related information - [Mental Capacity Assessment to Revoke a Lasting Power of Attorney](https://www.nelliesupports.com/lasting-power-of-attorney-services/revoke-lpa) - [NHS Continuing Healthcare Support](https://www.nelliesupports.com/services/continuing-healthcare) - [CHC Appeal Application: Drafting and Submission](https://www.nelliesupports.com/services/continuing-healthcare/chc-appeal-application) --- Nellie Supports Ltd · 0333 987 5118 · nellie@nelliesupports.com Office 11 and 12, Unit 20, Springfield Business Park, Grantham, NG31 7FZ