Advance statements and the law in Scotland

One of the principles of the Mental Health (Care and Treatment) (Scotland) Act 2003 is that of participation – service users should be fully involved in their assessment, care and treatment, and their past and present wishes should be taken into account. The Act has a number of provisions, including advance statements, named persons and access to independent advocacy, which aim to improve service user participation.

However, since the implementation of the Act the uptake of advance statements has been lower than expected. Following a review, the new Mental Health (Scotland) Act 2015 makes further provisions to increase the uptake and impact of advance statements.

This module will review the use of advance statements under the 2003 Act, give guidance on what should and should not be included, and provide some comparison with advance statements or advance directives in other legislatures.