February 2009 update

The following updates were made to the site in February 2009.

Website information

  • The Wikimentalhealth CPD scheme is now online. For £50 per annum, solicitors can earn 12 CPD points. The course is also suitable for psychiatrists (CPD) and social workers (post-registration training). For more information see CPD scheme
  • During February, Bailii uploaded 90 mental health law court judgments at the request of Wikimentalhealth. This brings the total number of cases available through Wikimentalhealth to 520. There are still some cases on the wish list, so if you have any judgments not on this site then please send them in. Links to these newly-added transcripts have been incorporated into the Cases to be added page

Legislation

Other documents

Relating to the Mental Capacity Act

England Wales

Extract from ADASS website

The DoLS project group have been working on new DoLS forms which are now available to download using the links below. Reducing the forms from 32 to 13 was not an easy task. Some elements of the forms are dictated by regulations and can’t change. Others seem particularly unnecessary. There are some situations still not really covered by a form and these will be addressed in the guidance which will accompany the forms.

The team have added some forms which didn’t previously exist, a “No Deprivation” form in particular. During consultation some people asked why this was necessary. This form has been used in the West Midlands for the last few years and it is very popular with BIA’s and speeds up the process. There is a new form for a further request for authorisation which is very popular with Managing Authorities. There is also a new form to notify the Coroner of a death.

The forms have had numerous revisions and received a lot of helpful comments from consultation most of which has been incorporated. Some of the comments related more to practice and as such will appear in the guidance to follow.

We are confident that this revision of the forms will play a small part in speeding up the processing of DoLS authorisations without losing necessary quality.

Lorraine Currie, Project Lead for ADASS

External links

  • DOLS forms (11/1/15). These are the forms emailed by the DoLS Forms Project Group on 11/1/15 (without restricted editing and with an amended eligibility section in Form 4).

External links

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  • Dept of Health: DOLS guidance for (1) PCTs and local authorities, (2) hospitals and care homes and (3) relevant person's representatives. Also, a document on "MCA DOLS and Section 75 partnerships under the National Health Service Act 2006" See Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards
  • DH: "Mental Capacity Act (Deprivation of Liberty: Monitoring and Reporting; and Assessments - Amendment) Regulations 2009 - response to the consultation". See Consultations

Relating to the Mental Health Act

  • MoJ Mental Health Unit: Bulletin No 6. Also, revised guidance for (1) clinical supervisors and (2) social supervisors. See Ministry of Justice
  • New children documents: "Systems Model for Planning the Implementation of the Age Appropriate Environment", and "Updated Headspace Toolkit" (for children). See Children and mental health law

Cases

February 2009

  • M v East London NHS Foundation Trust CO/1065/2009The nearest relative's statement to the AMHP that he disagreed with detention under s3 was sufficient to amount to the notification of an objection under s11; it was unaffected, in the absence of any clear evidence of a change of mind, by the failure to state an objection in a subsequent conversation immediately prior to the making of the application.§
  • Re P [2009] EWHC 163 (Ch) — Click on link to view page.§
  • Scottish Ministers v MHTS, re JK [2009] CSIH 9The Mental Health Tribunal for Scotland, in terminating a restiction order of a detained patient, had erred in law: (1) The threshold requirements in section 193(2) (that the patient has a mental disorder and that it is necessary for the patient to be detained in order to protect any other person from serious harm) must be considered and found wanting before considering the rest of the section including, under s193(5), whether to terminate the restriction order; (2) the criteria in s193(5)(b) (that the serious harm test is satisfied and that the restriction order is a continuing necessity) are disjunctive and must be separately considered. Obiter, there was a failure to deal with large parts of the evidence, in particular the RMO's evidence that the serious risk test was met.§
  • R (Purdy) v DPP [2009] EWCA Civ 92The absence of a crime-specific policy relating to assisted suicide (identifying the facts and circumstances where it will not be in the public interest to prosecute) does not make the operation and effect of section 2(1) of the Suicide Act 1961 Act unlawful nor mean that it is not in accordance with law for the purposes of Article 8(2). [Overturned on appeal.]§

January 2009

  • R (B) v DPP [2009] EWHC 106 (Admin)The decision to discontinue a prosecution for wounding with intent and witness intimidation, on the basis that the victim's mental illness meant he could not be placed before the jury as a credible witness, was irrational on the facts; s49A Disability Discrimination Act 1995 added nothing to the ordinary position under public law principles; there had been a breach the positive obligation under Article 3 (which includes the duty to provide a legal system for bringing to justice those who commit serious acts of violence against others) and £8000 was awarded in compensation.§
  • R (Wright) v SSH [2009] UKHL 3Section 82(4)(b) of the Care Standards Act 2000, which provides for the provisional inclusion in the POVA list of a care worker (thus depriving him of employment) immediately after concerns are raised but before any judicial hearing, is incompatible with Articles 6 and 8.§

2008