scholarly journals Holding powers in A&E departments

1997 ◽  
Vol 21 (10) ◽  
pp. 615-617
Author(s):  
K. R. Nicholls
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Community Care ◽  
Common Law ◽  
Mental Health Act ◽  
The Common

The Mental Health Act as an instrument of statute law is unable to address practicalities of caring for mentally disturbed persons who are awaiting formal detention. The common law relevant to this area is ill-defined and depends on interpretation of precedent. The resulting confusion and consequent problems will become more apparent with the advancement of community care, and is a matter which warrants urgent review.

scholarly journals The common law defence of automatism: a quagmire for the psychiatrist

2015 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 242-250 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keith J. B. Rix
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Psychiatric Disorder ◽  
Psychotropic Drugs ◽  
Common Law ◽  
Burden Of Proof ◽  
Standard Of Proof ◽  
Mental Health Act ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Law

SummaryThis article sets out the complicated and confused law on automatism and identifies the role of the psychiatrist, including paradoxically a role in cases of non-psychiatric disorder where the law requires evidence from a doctor approved under section 12 of the Mental Health Act. Legal definitions of automatism are introduced. The internal/external distinction, evidential burden, burden of proof, standard of proof, prior fault, intoxication and the degree of impairment illustrate how the courts limit the defence. Detailed accounts are given of cases in which the defence of automatism has been based on psychiatric disorder and on the effects of psychotropic drugs. Suggestions are made for approaches to assessment and medicolegal reporting.

scholarly journals The Mental Capacity Act 2005, the Mental Health Act 1983, and the Common Law

2014 ◽  
Vol 1 (13) ◽  
pp. 163
Author(s):  
Phil Fennell
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Common Law ◽  
Institutional Care ◽  
Mental Capacity ◽  
Bodily Integrity ◽  
Mental Health Act ◽  
European Court ◽  
Mental Capacity Act 2005 ◽  
The Common ◽  
Mental Capacity Act

<p align="LEFT">This paper considers what has come to be known as the ‘interface’ between the Mental Capacity Act 2005 and the Mental Health Act 1983. Until the 2005 Act comes into force in 2007, practitioners will have to be aware of the interface between powers to admit to institutional care and treat without consent under common law and those which exist under the Mental Health Act 1983.</p><p align="LEFT">In simple terms, the interface question is ‘When may the common law or, after 2007, the 2005 Act, be used to admit to institutional care and treat without consent, and when will use of the Mental Health Act be required?’ This article argues that there are two decisions of the European Court which need to be considered in determining how to bridge what has become the “Bournewood gap”: <em>HL v United Kingdom</em> and <em>Storck v Germany</em>. These will require that the State must provide effective supervisory mechanisms to ensure that mentally incapacitated people are not deprived of their liberty (Article 5) and do not have their right of bodily integrity interfered with (Article 8) without lawful authority.</p>

The History, Justification, and Purpose of Mental Health Law

2021 ◽  
pp. 34-52
Author(s):  
Kay Wilson
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Mental Health Problems ◽  
Common Law ◽  
Health Problems ◽  
Systemic Reform ◽  
Health Law ◽  
Mental Health Law ◽  
Incremental Change ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Common

Chapter 2 examines the historical development of mental health law in England (which is similar to the rest of the common law world, including America, Canada, and Australia) and uses that history to consider the justification, purpose, and need for mental health law from Ancient Greece to the present. Contrary to the claims of abolitionists that mental health law has essentially always stayed the same, it demonstrates a history of continuous legal and systemic reform in mental health law. Rather than an over-zealous and interfering state keen to exercise social control over persons with mental impairment, it instead depicts a state which for the most part reluctantly only became involved in the care of persons with mental health problems when informal care by family and friends failed or was non-existent, to prevent abuses by private operators, and as an incident of its administration of the criminal law. When set against the background of the fashions, cycles, and recurring themes of mental health law, the call of abolition can be conceptualized as simply the latest fad in its evolution. Further, many of the issues which arise from mental health problems will continue to exist even without mental health law. Mental health law can be positive and negative, including defining and protecting rights and allocating resources. The chapter cautions against being too optimistic about the promises of sweeping revolutionary changes which have never really delivered (deinstitutionalization or the ‘abolition’ of the asylum being the most poignant example), in favour of solid incremental change.

Intelligence of Patients in Subnormality Hospitals: A Survey of Admissions in 1961

1965 ◽  
Vol 111 (472) ◽  
pp. 219-225 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. H. F. Castell ◽  
P. J. Mittler
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Community Care ◽  
Working Party ◽  
Mental Health Act ◽  
British Psychological Society

This paper is one of two considering certain aspects of the Mental Health Act, 1959, in relation to subnormal patients; it is based on a report of a Working Party submitted to the Council of the British Psychological Society and is published with the Society's approval. (The second paper (Mittler and Castell, 1964) considers plans for hospital and community care.)

scholarly journals Brief Report: Decline in the Use of ECT: The York Study

1987 ◽  
Vol 11 (9) ◽  
pp. 303-304
Author(s):  
Kumud Bhatnagar ◽  
Peter Kennedy ◽  
Stephen Morley
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
General Practitioners ◽  
National Survey ◽  
Community Care ◽  
Antidepressant Drug ◽  
Good Deal ◽  
Mental Health Act

A national survey in 1980 drew attention to the wide variation in frequency with which electro-convulsive treatment was being used. Yorkshire Region was at the top of the league with three times the level of the Oxford Region which had the lowest rate. Since then a good deal more research has been published on the effectiveness and limitations of ECT.1–3 Other factors which might have influenced clinicians in their prescribing of this treatment include much stricter conditions in the 1983 Mental Health Act for giving ECT compulsorily, plenty of media comment which may have reduced its acceptability, the increasing confidence of general practitioners in prescribing antidepressant drug therapies, and the greater emphasis on community care.

scholarly journals Bournewood: Law and capacity

1999 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 177-177 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Devakumar
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Community Mental Health ◽  
Mental Disorder ◽  
Common Law ◽  
Appeal Court ◽  
Assessment And Treatment ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Right ◽  
Health Trust

The Law Lords in June 1998 overturned the judgement in the matter of L. v. Bournewood. The Law Lords, on a majority decision, were of the opinion that a compliant incapacitated patient such as L. does not need the formal powers of the Mental Health Act and admission to hospital and subsequent assessment and treatment for mental disorder can be based on the common law principles of necessity. However, this position is quite contrary to the Appeal Court judges' view, “The right of a hospital to detain a patient for treatment for mental disorder is to be found in, and only in, the 1983 Act, whose provisions apply to the exclusion of the common law principle of necessity” (L. v. Bournewood Community Mental Health Trust, 1997).

Trends in the use of the Italian Mental Health Act, 1979–1997

2004 ◽  
Vol 19 (7) ◽  
pp. 444-445 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giuseppe Guaiana ◽  
Corrado Barbui
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Community Care ◽  
Absolute Number ◽  
Mental Health Act ◽  
The Absolute ◽  
Psychiatric Beds

AbstractItalian statistics on psychiatric bed availability, voluntary and compulsory admissions were examined from 1979 to 1997. Although the number of psychiatric beds dropped by 62.5%, the absolute number of compulsory admissions has remained substantially stable. The proportion of all admissions that were compulsory decreased from 17.1% to 11%. This study shows that a shift to community care was not associated with an increase in compulsory admissions in Italy.

scholarly journals Masterman-Lister and the Capacity to Manage One’s Property and Affairs

2014 ◽  
pp. 203
Author(s):  
Denzil Lush
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Mental Disorder ◽  
Common Law ◽  
Important Decision ◽  
Mental Health Act ◽  
English Law

<p>The judgment of Mr. Justice Wright in Masterman-Lister v Jewell and Home Counties Dairies and Masterman-Lister v Brutton &amp; Co., [2002] EWHC 417 (QB), which was handed down on 15 March 2002, is the most important decision so far in English law on the meaning of the term ‘patient’. This, of course, is one of the two disabilities recognized in CPR Part 21. It is also the cornerstone of the Court of Protection’s jurisdiction under the Mental Health Act 1983.<br /><br />Section 94(2) of that Act defines a ‘patient’ as someone who is ‘incapable, by reason of mental disorder, of managing and administering his property and affairs.’ There are two prerequisites. A person must (a) have a mental disorder, and (b) as a consequence, be incapable of managing and administering his property and affairs.<br /><br />‘Mental disorder’ is defined in the legislation, but the incapacity to manage one’s property and affairs is not, and this is where Sir Michael Wright’s decision has filled a void, and possibly opened a debate. In fact, he said nothing startlingly new, but the significance of his judgment is that it will be widely reported, whereas previous decisions on the meaning of incapacity to manage one’s property and affairs have been inaccessible, either because they were unreported, or because they emanated from other common law jurisdictions, whose reports are only available in a few very specialist libraries.</p>

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