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The Mental Health Acts and people with severe learning disability

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

David H. James
David H. James*
Affiliation:
Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Mental Handicap NHS Trust, Truro TR1 1NR
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As a consultant in the psychiatry of learning disability for the past 18 years, I had assumed that the Mental Health Acts referred to those patients who have some understanding of the concept of treatment and who are able to clearly express an objection to any proposed management. Those who could not express an objection because of severe handicap (“non-volitional patients”), I treated as informal patients. This view was supported by a representative of the Medical Protection Society, with whom I had discussions soon after I became a consultant. It agrees with the assumption that is widely held that for informal admission to occur, a person need not express positive willingness to be admitted to hospital, that it is sufficient that he is not unwilling to be treated in hospital (Gostin, 1983).

Type
Forum
Information
Psychiatric Bulletin , Volume 17 , Issue 6 , June 1993 , pp. 357 - 358
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 1993

References

Gostin, L. (1983) A Practical Guide to Mental Health Law. London: Mind. Page 6.Google Scholar
Murphy, E. (1990) The Mental Health Act and what is not in it. In Psychiatry and the Law (eds. Bradley, J. J. et al) Southampton: Duphar.Google Scholar
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