# Mental Capacity (Amendment) Act 2019, Section 2: Deprivation of liberty: authorisation of steps necessary for life-sustaining treatment or vital act

Status: prospective

For section 4B of the Mental Capacity Act 2005 substitute—
“Deprivation of liberty necessary for life-sustaining treatment or vital act
4B (1) If Conditions 1 to 4 are met, D is authorised to take steps which deprive P of liberty.
(2) Condition 1 is that the steps—
(a) are wholly or partly for the purpose of giving P life-sustaining treatment or doing any vital act, or
(b) consist wholly or partly of giving P life-sustaining treatment or doing any vital act.
(3) A vital act is any act which the person doing it reasonably believes to be necessary to prevent a serious deterioration in P's condition.
(4) Condition 2 is that the steps are necessary in order to give the life-sustaining treatment or do the vital act.
(5) Condition 3 is that D reasonably believes that P lacks capacity to consent to D taking the steps.
(6) Condition 4 is that—
(a) subsection (7) applies, or
(b) there is an emergency.
(7) This subsection applies if—
(a) a decision relevant to whether D is authorised to deprive P of liberty is being sought from the court, or
(b) a responsible body is carrying out functions under Schedule AA1 with a view to determining whether to authorise arrangements that give rise to a deprivation of P's liberty.
(8) In subsection (7) it does not matter—
(a) whether the decision mentioned in paragraph (a) relates to the steps mentioned in subsection (1);
(b) whether the arrangements mentioned in paragraph (b) include those steps.
(9) There is an emergency if D reasonably believes that—
(a) there is an urgent need to take the steps mentioned in subsection (1) in order to give the life-sustaining treatment or do the vital act, and
(b) it is not reasonably practicable before taking those steps—
(i) to make an application for P to be detained under Part 2 of the Mental Health Act,
(ii) to make an application within subsection (7)(a), or
(iii) to secure that action within subsection (7)(b) is taken.”

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Source: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2019/18/section/2 (the official version)
Page: https://openlegislation.uk/mental-capacity-amendment-act-2019/section-2
Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Source: legislation.gov.uk, The National Archives.