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Welcome to the website for the new Independent Mental Capacity Advocate (IMCA) service for Suffolk.
Contact the IMCA Suffolk Service on 01449 771590.
What is the IMCA Service?
The Mental Capacity Act was implemented in April 2007 and came into full force in October 2007.
The Act aims to ensure that anyone who is unable to communicate their own decisions through mental incapacity such as anyone with dementia, a brain injury, a learning disability or mental health needs, has independent representation to help them make decisions. The Act could affect anyone.
The Act has also created a new service, the Independent Mental Capacity Advocate (IMCA) service. The IMCA role is to:
- Support people who lack capacity
- Obtain and evaluate relevant information on behalf of the person
- Find out as far as possible the person’s wishes and feelings
- Identify alternative courses of action
- Obtain further medical opinion when necessary.
An IMCA is someone appointed to represent and support a person who may not have the mental capacity to represent themselves or make decisions about serious medical treatment and long term care moves.
The role of the IMCA service is to provide independent safeguards for people who lack capacity to make certain important decisions and at the time such decisions need to be made have no-one else to support or represent them or who can be consulted.
IMCAs are independent and all our IMCAs are fully trained. Advocates from other sources may not be accredited to provide this sort of support.An IMCA must be instructed and then consulted for people lacking capacity with no-one else to support them.
An NHS body proposing to provide serious medical treatment, or an NHS body or local authority who is proposing to arrange accommodation (or a change of accommodation), whether in a hospital or care home, where the person will stay in hospital for more than 28 days or in a care home for more than eight weeks, must instruct an IMCA.
An IMCA may be instructed to support someone who lacks capacity to make decisions that concern their care reviews and adult protection cases, whether there is someone to support them or not.