# Mental Capacity Act (Northern Ireland) 2016, Section 88: Request for independent mental capacity advocate to be instructed

Status: prospective

(1) This section applies where it reasonably appears to an appropriate healthcare professional—
(a) that a determination needs to be made of whether a particular act would be in the best interests of a person (“P”) who is 16 or over and lacks capacity in relation to the matter; and
(b) that by reason of section 35 or 55, an independent mental capacity advocate needs to be instructed to represent and provide support to P in that determination.
(2) The appropriate healthcare professional may request the relevant trust to instruct an independent mental capacity advocate to represent and provide support to P in the determination of whether the act would be in P's best interests.
(3) A request under this section may be made only if the steps required by section 89 have been taken so far as practicable.
(4) A request under this section must be in a prescribed form and include prescribed information.
(5) In this section—
“appropriate healthcare professional” means a person of a prescribed description.
“the relevant trust” means the HSC trust in whose area the act would be carried out.

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Source: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/nia/2016/18/section/88 (the official version)
Page: https://openlegislation.uk/mental-capacity-act-northern-ireland-2016/section-88
Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Source: legislation.gov.uk, The National Archives.