Abstract

A recent visit to the Wickham Unit (a low-secure rehabilitation unit) at Blackberry Hill Hospital, Bristol, by the Mental Health Act Commission raised a controversial issue regarding the legal prescribing of medication for individuals who are detained under the Mental Health Act. There was a case of

Highlights

  • Columns and how they should be working and, instead of introducing flexibility, enforce rigidity

  • I was interested to read about the discrepancy in the number of capacity assessments carried out by doctors on general adult and old age psychiatry wards (Singhal et al, Psychiatric Bulletin, January 2008, 32, 17-19)

  • The authors gave no explanation, the result could be because in-patients on the general adult wards, who probably lacked capacity, were more likely to be detained under the Mental Health Act and fell outside the Bournewood gap

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Summary

Columns Correspondence

AUTHOR’S PROOF columns and how they should be working and, instead of introducing flexibility, enforce rigidity. The authors gave no explanation, the result could be because in-patients on the general adult wards, who probably lacked capacity, were more likely to be detained under the Mental Health Act and fell outside the Bournewood gap This result does support my belief that doctors on general adult psychiatry wards do not assess their patient’s capacity (to consent to treatment) often enough. As advanced by Stone (1984), argues that clinicians should not act as expert witnesses as they cannot help but use their therapeutic skills at interview which may induce disclosures used by courts for nonmedical purposes This raises the unedifying prospect of participants in the legal process unused to delivering psychiatric treatment being responsible for advising the court on mental health disposals.

New exam structure too much too soon?
Objective
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