Lasting powers of attorney in England and Wales were created under the Mental Capacity Act 2005 of which copies are available online, and came into effect on 16 September 2010. The LPA replaced the former Enduring Powers of Attorney,which were narrower in scope. Their purpose is to meet the needs of those who can see a time ahead when they will not be able – in the words of the Act, will lack capacity, to look after their own personal and financial affairs. The LPA allows them to make appropriate arrangements for family members or trusted friends to be authorised to make decisions on their behalf.The former EPA was simple to administer, but failed to provide for some decisions which may have to be made in circumstances that preclude their being made by the person principally affected. In particular, the attorney's powers under the EPA were largely defined in terms of money and property, and were not related to decisions on medical matters such as the continuation or otherwise of life-sustaining treatment, or welfare matters such as a move to a different kind of accommodation. The primary purpose of the changes under MCA 2009 was to rectify this omission, by creating two LPas,One for property and financial affairs and one for Health and Welfare. The opportunity was also taken to make further changes, whose principal effect was to make the whole apparatus very much more complex, and correspondingly more expensive to administer.The test so defined is decision-specific. It can indicate an answer to the question Can he any longer use a gas ring safely when unsupervised?', but does not allow for wider questions to be given a firm yes/no answer when the real answer is that he has restricted capacity and so can deal with some aspects but not others. As stated in an official summary of the Act, it is 'a single clear test for assessing whether a person lacks capacity to take a particular decision at a particular time.