It’s now almost two months since Nicky and I launched our new business venture, Mental Capacity Ltd, offering training and support for professionals working in the field of mental capacity.
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Introducing Mental Capacity Ltd
It’s been a while since I last posted. As well as my ongoing teaching, research and consultancy work, I’ve also been quietly working away on a project that’s been close to my heart for quite some time now…
The idea first came to me when I visited my sister Nicky and saw for myself some of the issues she was facing in her work as Mental Capacity Assessor and Advocate. Quite simply, not enough care providers know enough about the Mental Capacity Act (2005), and many more don’t apply the act correctly. This has direct and often quite meaningful consequences for vulnerable people, who have their liberties taken away or limited based on poor training on the part of care professionals.
Continue readingProduce, consume, repeat: what the science fiction of Frederik Pohl tells us about consumption
These days it’s all but impossible to separate the things we produce from the things we consume. Whether it be working on a production line, or staying at home raising children, many of the things that we do are a form of production – whether we get paid for that work, or not. And yet at the same time, we are also consumers, for we all pay bills, we all shop for food, and we all send our children to school.
Things then become problematic when production and consumption start to blur, for we produce in order to consume, but we also consume in order to produce. Whether it be catching a bus or paying for lunch, even the process of working itself is a form of consumption, and more often than not, many of us will also then consume the same product we have a hand in producing.
Continue readingThe Hitchhiker’s Guide to Business
I’ve recently been interviewed for the Lancaster University Management School alumni magazine, 54 Degrees. You can read the feature below:
Continue readingHumans, robots and rules: what the Covid-19 pandemic tells us about decision-making and rules
As we all set ourselves up for weeks, or even months, of self-isolation, never has there been a better time to think about rules, and the reasons we do the things that we do.
While the UK government has imposed new rules, telling us that we need to stay at home, these rules are only ever an approximation of the ideal rule, which in this case, is the idea that everyone needs to stay at home. The issue here is that while universal isolation is all well and good in theory, we still need health workers and we still need to keep the electricity flowing and the water running.
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