Hi i wanted to ask what is the time frame that a failed discharge option can be used for P to go back in hospital back on s2 that P was discharged from. And who can do this admission back in. Can the P do themselves or can the psych liason team at A&E do this referal or does a new MHA needs to be completed .
If a person has been discharged from admission under the act then that’s it. For the person to go back to hospital it would require a further MHA assessment or a voluntary admission.
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The relevant words are ‘admission’ and ‘hospital’. Unfortunately whilst the words seem simple enough to ordinary people, the issues are not simple at all.
Admission under detention of any kind depends on bed availability in a hospital. That has been a national nightmare across this land for the last 30 years and it’s only growing worse.
The completion of a section (2 and 3) will depend on an AMHP agreeing to support the recommendations of two medical doctors by way of a thing called ‘application’. The ‘triangle’ must be complete.
But…but… “no beds” - where tails wag the Parliamentary head - means that AMHPs are frequently hamstrung to complete their ‘applications’. As I have argued in other threads ‘application’ is therefore more powerful than two medical recommendations - because the AMHP can overrule two doctors. NO doctor can make an application.
But unbeknownst to many in an emergency situation the Nearest Relative has more power than any doctor - because the NR can make that all powerful ‘application’, which if enacted would send people running around like headless chickens.
Let’s learn: S4 states, “An emergency application may be made either by an approved mental health professional or by the nearest relative of the patient; and every such application shall include a statement that it is of urgent necessity for the patient to be admitted and detained under section 2 above, and that compliance with the provisions of this Part of this Act relating to applications under that section would involve undesirable delay.”
[Caution: this is not advice to you to trigger a S4. I am just stating what the law says and the power of the Nearest Relative in a specific situation.]