SINGAPORE — The Mental Capacity Act (MCA) will be amended by the end of this year to better support mentally incapacitated individuals and their families, Social and Family Development Minister Chan Chun Sing announced in parliament today (March 13).

The changes include more accessible and affordable court processes for families to be appointed as deputies to act for individuals who do not have the mental capacity to granting an Lasting Power of Attorney (LPA) to someone else.

A panel of deputies will also be appointed to act on behalf of mentally incapacitated individuals with modest assets but no family support, Mr Chan said.

The panel currently comprises 16 members, including accountants, lawyers and social workers.

Acknowledging Aljunied GRC MP and Workers’ Party chairwoman Sylvia Lim’s concerns that elderly applicants may be unduly influenced by others to the detriment of his or her own interests, Mr Chan said his ministry will consider Ms Lim’s suggestions — such as reinstating the requirement for each LPA certificate issuer to specifically ask if the applicant wants to inform someone of the application and for the issuer to indicate in the LPA how long he has known the applicant or how he formed a reliable opinion of the applicant’s mental capacity — as part of an ongoing process to review and update the Act.

For instance, simplification of the LPA forms in July last year has led to a 30 per cent increase in applications and has “served the vast majority of the people well”, Mr Chan added.

With an increasing number of LPAs being done up in the ageing population here, there is a need to balance between having a system that caters to the needs of majority, and incorporating risk-management practices to “flag outliers”, he said.

Amendments to the MCA will complement the proposed Vulnerable Adults Act, to be enacted by the end of this year, aimed at plugging gaps in legislation by giving social workers greater powers of access and to appoint public deputies to act on behalf of vulnerable adults.