In forceAmended2020 Revised Edition

Contents

Mental Capacity Act 2008 · 2020 Revised Edition · Part 3 · Acts in Connection with Care or Treatment

7. Acts in connection with care or treatment

In plain English

Someone caring for or treating a person has no more liability than if the person had capacity and consented. This applies when they take reasonable steps beforehand to check capacity and reasonably believe the person lacks it and acting is in the person's best interests. Liability for negligence still applies. Clinical trials and human biomedical research are not covered.

Summary · Drafted with AI, checked against the official text on 30 Sep 2026.

Amended

Last amended by an amending law of 2015.

(1)

If a person (“D”) does an act in connection with the care or treatment of another person (“P”), the act is one to which this section applies if —

(a)

before doing the act, D takes reasonable steps to establish whether P lacks capacity in relation to the matter in question; and

(b)

when doing the act, D reasonably believes —

(i)

that P lacks capacity in relation to the matter; and

(ii)

that it will be in P’s best interests for the act to be done.

(2)

D does not incur any liability in relation to the act that D would not have incurred if P —

(a)

had had capacity to consent in relation to the matter; and

(b)

had consented to D’s doing the act.

(3)

Nothing in this section —

(a)

excludes a person’s civil liability for loss or damage, or the person’s criminal liability, resulting from the person’s negligence in doing the act;

(b)

affects the operation of the Advance Medical Directive Act 1996;

(c)

applies to the conduct of a clinical trial; or

(d)

applies to the conduct of human biomedical research within the meaning of the Human Biomedical Research Act 2015 or the removal or use of human tissue under that Act.