Abstract
<p>I intend here to look at two related areas: first, the actual powers that supervised community treatment provides to clinicians, especially in relation to the administration of treatment, and, second, the relationship of SCT with the other community powers of the Mental Health Act, especially the power under s.17 to allow detained patients leave from hospital. Whether such a focus will enable us to be “sure of the thing” that is SCT is perhaps doubtful, and we obviously cannot resolve the question of how (or indeed if) the SCT regime will be operated in practice across England and Wales, but it may help us to think more clearly about the possibilities and prepare ourselves to untangle some of the knots established in the primary legislation. I will conclude with some comments on the potential numbers of patients involved and whether Scotland’s experience of community treatment orders tells us anything about the likely implementation of powers in England and Wales.</p>
Highlights
The reason of a thing is not be enquired after, till you are sure the thing itself be so
Writing in the last issue of this journal, Kris Gledhill gave a broad account of the introduction of supervised community treatment (SCT) to the law of England and Wales as a result of the amending provisions of the Mental Health Act 20073
Once the community treatment order has been made, the responsible clinician can amend or suspend the conditions without reference to the AMHP16, the revised Code suggests that “it would not be good practice to vary conditions which had recently been agreed with an approved mental health practitioner (AMHP), without discussion with that AMHP”17
Summary
The reason of a thing is not be enquired after, till you are sure the thing itself be so. Some months after Gledhill was writing, we have Codes of Practice for England and (in draft) Wales[5], a draft reference guide providing the Department of Health’s interpretation of its legislation[6], and two very useful and detailed legal commentaries by Phil Fennell[7] and Paul Bowen[8]. Armed with these documents, it is possible to look in some more detail at how the new legal landscape might be negotiated by practitioners upon its full implementation in November 2008. Whether (mindful of the epigraph to this paper) such a focus will enable us to be “sure of the thing” that is SCT is perhaps doubtful, and we obviously cannot resolve the question of how (or if) the SCT regime will be operated in practice across England and Wales, but it may help us to think
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