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High rate of Section 4 admissions: clinical implications and possible explanation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Basant K. Puri  and
Donald F. Bermingham
Basant K. Puri
Affiliation:
Addenbrookes Hospital, Cambridge
Donald F. Bermingham
Affiliation:
Hinchingbrooke Hospital, Huntingdon, and Fulbourn Hospital, Cambridge
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The Mental Health Commissioners recommend that whenever possible two doctors should be involved in the decision to admit a patient to hospital under the Mental Health Act (1983). That is, Sections 2 and 3 of the Act should always be used in preference to Section 4, where only one doctor is required. It further recommends that the use of Section 4 should be confined to emergencies when it is only possible to secure the attendance of one doctor.

Type
Articles
Information
Psychiatric Bulletin , Volume 14 , Issue 1 , January 1990 , pp. 21 - 22
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1990

References

Fahy, T. A., Bermingham, D. & Dunn, J. (1987) Police admissions to psychiatric hospitals: a challenge to community psychiatry? Medicine, Science and the Law, 4, 263–268.Google Scholar
Webster, L., Dean, C. & Kessel, N. (1987) Effects of the 1983 Mental Health Act on the management of psychiatric patients. British Medical Journal, 295, 1529–1532.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
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