Going home? An ethnographic study of assessment of capacity and best interests in people with dementia being discharged from hospital

Table 1 Demographic and background details of 29 participants, including capacity assessments and place of discharge

Age	Mean = 83 (range 69–92)
Gender	Female = 16; Male = 13
Ethnicity	White British = 28; White European = 1
Location	Acute =20; Rehab =9
Average length of stay	Acute ward = 35 days (range 13–59 days)
Average length of stay	Rehabilitation ward = 87 (range 29–157 days)
Mini-mental state examination (MMSE) scores (see Table 2 for details)	Range 6–30
Diagnosis of dementia	n = 20
Formally recorded capacity assessments regarding place of residence¹	n = 14
Clinical judgements of capacity regarding place of residence	Capacity = 13; Lacks capacity =16;
Discharge outcome	Home = 10; Care = 18 (Nursing = 9, Res = 9); Deceased = 1

¹Table 1 notes the formally recorded assessments of capacity. This simply means that the results of assessments of residence capacity were written in the medical, nursing or social work notes. In this sense an informal assessment would be one where staff had formed the opinion that someone had or did not have capacity but this was not recorded in a legal document, i.e. not recorded in health or social care records.

ISSN: 1471-2318