Covert medication guidance

The Social Care Institute for Excellence and the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence have produced a quick guide on providing medicines support primarily intended for use by care home and home care managers, but which should be of interest to other professionals involved in delivering, supervising or commissioning residential and community care.

The guide, Giving medicines covertly, is available for download from the SCIE website here. However to access it you will need to register for a free MySCIE account which you can do here. The new guide is accompanied by an interactive web resource, available here.

The short and accessible guide is a welcome complement to existing CQC guidance on administering medicines covertly If properly followed, it will help busy professionals navigate the complex process that applies to decisions about whether administering covert medicine is in a non-capacitous adults best interests.

We routinely advise clients on mental capacity law and represent them in proceedings in the Court of Protection. If you have queries about covert medicine or mental capacity law generally, please do not hesitate to get in touch.