Had a bit of an issue cropped up the other day with a patient coming in, dying but lucid and who wanted to draw up a will. Has anyone come across this, and what do you do? It's not an easy one to google for (as "will" is too common a word, but nothing else seems to work). However I can see potential issues about someone's capacity to make a new will while in the ED; and while I can see it from the patient's point of view I don't want to get our most senior staff (or myself coming in in the early hours) tied up with assessment and documentation of capacity if it's avoidable. I did find one article about testamentary capacity pointing out that this is a legal term that we shouldn't use without being pretty sure of our grounds, and that it is very different to capacity to consent to a procedure.
Matt Dunn
Warwick
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