Article 5 Advance decisions to refuse life-sustaining treatment

(1)

An advance decision refusing life-sustaining treatment shall be treated as valid and applicable to a treatment and does not have to satisfy the requirements mentioned in paragraph (3) if the conditions in paragraph (2) are met.

(2)

The conditions that must be met are that—

(a)

a person providing health care for a person (“P”) reasonably believes that –

(i)

P has made the advance decision refusing life-sustaining treatment before 1 October 2007, and

(ii)

P has lacked the capacity to comply with the provisions mentioned in paragraph (3) since 1 October 2007;

(b)

the advance decision is in writing;

(c)

P has not—

(i)

withdrawn the decision at a time when he had capacity to do so, or

(ii)

done anything else clearly inconsistent with the advance decision remaining his fixed decision;

(d)

P does not have the capacity to give or refuse consent to the treatment in question at the material time;

(e)

the treatment in question is the treatment specified in the advance decision;

(f)

any circumstances specified in the advance decision are present; and

(g)

there are no reasonable grounds for believing that circumstances exist which P did not anticipate at the time of the advance decision and which would have affected his decision had he anticipated them.

(3)

The requirements that do not have to be satisfied are as follows—

(a)

the requirement for the decision to be verified by a statement by P to the effect that the advance decision is to apply to that treatment even if life is at risk (section 25(5)(a) of the Act); and

(b)

the requirement for a signed and witnessed advance decision (section 25(6)(b) to (d) of the Act).

(4)

In this article, “advance decision” has the meaning given in section 24(1) of the Act.