Adults with Incapacity Amendment Act: Consultation
People across Scotland are being invited to respond to our new consultation and have their say in the Adults with Incapacity Amendment Act:
When the Adults with Incapacity Act (AWI Act) was introduced in 2000, it was regarded as ground-breaking legislation. For the first time, Scotland had a comprehensive regime to protect the welfare and financial rights of persons lacking in capacity.
But international human rights law in this field has developed further since then and we need to ensure that Scotland’s law remains fully fit for purpose.
This consultation is seeking views on proposals for changes to the AWI Act, with the Chief Scientist Office having developed proposals which aim to modernise and update how the AWI Act supports incapacitated adults to participate in research. These are expanded on and contextualised in Part 8 of the consultation paper, but the proposals can be summarised as follows:
- Being allowed to establish more than one ethics committee that is capable of reviewing research proposals involving incapacitated adults in Scotland.
- Permitting adults with incapacity to be included in research studies without consent for those types of studies where consent is already not required from adults with capacity.
- Affording adults with incapacity the opportunity to participate in research studies that investigate conditions other than those responsible for their incapacity.
- Permitting waivers of consent to be applied in emergency situations to involve adults with incapacity in research in cases where it is not reasonably practical or feasible to seek consent from the individual’s guardian, welfare attorney or nearest relative.
- Expanding the list of individuals permitted to provide consent for adults with incapacity to take part in research.
The consultation will run until 17 October, and we welcome a wide range of feedback. If you’d like to contribute, please follow the link above. Whilst we in CSO have highlighted Part 8 of the consultation as it pertains to research, respondents are encouraged to complete as many or as few questions as they wish across all sections of the consultation.