7. Mental Health Law

Medical Law ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 351-419
Author(s):  
Emily Jackson
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Community Treatment ◽  
Health Law ◽  
Persons With Disabilities ◽  
Mental Health Law ◽  
Mental Health Act ◽  
Independent Review ◽  
History Of ◽  
Human Rights Act ◽  
The Uk

All books in this flagship series contain carefully selected substantial extracts from key cases, legislation, and academic debate, providing able students with a stand-alone resource. This chapter discusses mental health law in the UK. It begins with a brief history of mental health law and policy. This is followed by discussions of: admission to the mental health system; treatment of the mentally ill under the Mental Health Act 1983; Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DoLS) and Cheshire West, and Community Treatment Orders. It also looks at the implications of the Human Rights Act and the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) for mental health law. It also considers the conclusions of the Independent Review of the Mental Health Act 1983.

The role of the nearest relative in mental health law

2020 ◽  
Vol 29 (21) ◽  
pp. 1296-1297
Author(s):  
Richard Griffith
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Health Law ◽  
Senior Lecturer ◽  
Mental Health Law ◽  
Mental Health Act

Richard Griffith, Senior Lecturer in Health Law at Swansea University, considers the role of the nearest relative, a statutory friend, appointed for patients detained under the Mental Health Act 1983

Mental Health Law

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kay Wilson
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Mental Capacity ◽  
Health Law ◽  
Conceptual Basis ◽  
Disability Rights ◽  
Persons With Disabilities ◽  
Mental Health Law ◽  
Abolitionist Movement ◽  
Treaty Interpretation ◽  
The Right

The debate about whether mental health law should be abolished or reformed emerged during the negotiations of the Convention on the Right of Persons with Disabilities (‘CRPD’) and has raged fiercely for over a decade. It has resulted in an impasse between abolitionists, States Parties, and other reformers and a literature which has devolved into ‘camps’. Mental Health Law: Abolish or Reform? aims to cut through the confusion using the tools of human rights treaty interpretation backed by a deep jurisprudential analysis of core CRPD concepts—dignity (including autonomy), equality, and participation—to gain a clearer understanding of the meaning of the CRPD and what it requires States Parties to do. In doing so, it sets out the development of both mental health law and the abolitionist movement including its goals and how and why it has emerged now. By digging deeper into the conceptual basis of the CRPD and developing the ‘interpretive compass’, the book aims to flesh out a broader vision of disability rights and move the debate forward by evaluating the three main current abolition and reform options: Abolition with Support, Mental Capacity with Support, and Support Except Where There is Harm. Drawing on jurisprudential and multi-disciplinary research from philosophy, medicine, sociology, disability studies, and history, it argues that mental health law should not be abolished, but should instead be significantly reformed to minimize coercion and maximize the support and choices given to persons with mental impairments to realize of all of their CRPD rights.

A retrospective cohort study describing characteristics of those repeatedly detained under Section 136 of the Mental Health Act over a 5-year period and the association with past abuse

2021 ◽  
pp. 002580242110454
Author(s):  
Laureen Adewusi ◽  
Isabel Mark ◽  
Paige Wells ◽  
Aileen O’Brien
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Past History ◽  
Significant Proportion ◽  
Community Support ◽  
White Ethnicity ◽  
Demographic Profiles ◽  
Mental Health Act ◽  
History Of ◽  
Self Harm ◽  
The Uk

Individuals repeatedly detained under Section 136 (S136) of the Mental Health Act account for a significant proportion of all detentions. This study provides a detailed analysis of those repeatedly detained (‘repeat attenders’) to a London Mental Health Trust, identifying key demographic profiles when compared to non-repeat attenders, describing core clinical characteristics and determining to what degree a past history of abuse might be associated with these. All detentions to the S136 suite at South West London and St George's Mental Health NHS Trust over a 5-year period (2015–2020) were examined. Data were collected retrospectively from electronic records. A total of 1767 patients had been detained, with 81 patients identified as being a ‘repeat attenders’ (having had > = 3 detentions to the S136 suite during the study period). Repeat attenders accounted for 400 detentions, 17.7% of all detentions. Repeat attenders included a higher proportion of females (49.4%, p = 0.0001), compared to non-repeat attenders, and a higher proportion of them were of white ethnicity (85.2%, p = 0.001). 52 (64%) patients reported being a victim of past abuse or trauma. Of repeat attenders who reported past abuse or trauma, a high proportion had diagnoses of personality disorders, with deliberate self-harm as the most common reason for detention. They were more commonly discharged home with community support, rather than considered for hospital admission. In light of these findings, this paper discusses support potential strategies for those most vulnerable to repeated S136 detention, thereby minimising the ever-growing number of S136 detentions in the UK.

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.

scholarly journals Mental health law in Ghana

2017 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 38-39 ◽  
Author(s):  
George Hudson Walker ◽  
Akwasi Osei
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Mental Disorders ◽  
Health System ◽  
Mental Health System ◽  
Mental Healthcare ◽  
Health Law ◽  
Community Based ◽  
Mental Health Law ◽  
Mental Health Act ◽  
New System

In 2012 Ghana passed a new Mental Health Act, which aimed to create a new system of mental healthcare in Ghana. The Act includes provisions for the creation of a modern, community-based mental health system and for the protection of the rights of persons with mental disorders. This article discusses the implications of the Act and the progress which has been made towards its implementation.

scholarly journals The mental capacity tribunal under the model law: what are we arguing about?

2014 ◽  
pp. 55
Author(s):  
Robert Robinson
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Psychiatric Treatment ◽  
Dental Health ◽  
Legal Framework ◽  
Mental Illnesses ◽  
Health Law ◽  
Mental Health Law ◽  
Mental Health Act ◽  
Model Law ◽  
Serious Mental Illnesses

It would be a mistake to think of mental health law as a generic form of law directed at a particular class of people, those described as suffering from mental disorders. If a person who has a mental disorder will accept treatment, whether or not they have the capacity to consent to it, there is in general no need to have recourse to mental health law. The Mental Health Act 1983 (‘MHA’) exists for the specific purpose<br />of regulating, and ultimately adjudicating upon, the conflict between a person who objects to receiving psychiatric treatment and the professionals on whom the law confers powers of compulsion. But, as advocates of a capacity-based legal framework would surely agree, it is not the existence of mental health law that gives rise to this conflict. That we have a Mental Health Act but not, say, a Dental Health Act is explained by features characteristic of serious mental illnesses which are not, by and large, found in other medical conditions.

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