April 2023 update

This page is automatically generated: it will only be complete at the end of the month. All monthly updates are available here: Archive of monthly updates.

Website

• Magic Book. The Magic Book is a database of contact details. The main idea is to add the hospitals and other places you visit (not just your own place of work). To create/edit contacts, there is no need to log in and the process is very quick and simple. See Magic Book

• Mental Health Law Online CPD scheme: 12 points for £60. Obtain 12 CPD points online by answering monthly questionnaires. The scheme is an ideal way to obtain your necessary hours, or to evidence your continued competence. It also helps to support the continued development of this website, and your subscriptions (and re-subscriptions) are appreciated. For full details and to subscribe, see CPD scheme.

• Cases. By the end of this month, Mental Health Law Online contained 2313 categorised cases

• Chronology. See April 2023 chronology for this month's changes to the website in date order.

Resources

• Mental capacity book. Alex Ruck Keene (ed), Assessment of Mental Capacity (5th edn, Law Society 2022) — I don't have this edition but earlier editions were good.

News

• Abolition of MHA and MCA. Following the recommendations in Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, 'Concluding observations on the initial report of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland' (3/10/17) that the UK should "[r]epeal legislation and practices that authorize non-consensual involuntary, compulsory treatment and detention of persons with disabilities on the basis of actual or perceived impairment", and should "abolish all forms of substituted decision-making concerning all spheres and areas of life", the government has decided to repeal not only the Mental Health Act 1983 but also the Mental Capacity Act 2005. Details of future legislation have yet to be announced, but it is likely that preventive State detention will be permitted based on a non-discriminatory assessment that a citizen is dangerous. This step has been welcomed by both the Association of Patient Representatives in London (APRiL) and the Federation of Outpatient Lawyers (FoOL).

Social media

Nothing to report this month.

Other items

• Apr 2023: Abbasi v Newcastle Upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust [2023] EWCA Civ 331
• Apr 2023: Link to UKSC hearing video added to R (Worcestershire County Council) v SSHSC [2021] EWCA Civ 1957
• Apr 2023: Alex Ruck Keene (ed), Assessment of Mental Capacity (5th edn, Law Society 2022)
• Apr 2023: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/civil-legal-aid-means-testing Keycard 59 - April 2023
• Apr 2023: Rebecca Thomas, 'Hospital of horrors: 1,643 ‘sexual safety incidents’ in a single 59-bed children’s unit' (Independent, 11/4/23)
• Apr 2023: National Preventive Mechanism, 'Monitoring places of detention: 13th Annual Report of the UK's NPM' (17/4/23)

=Has been added to MHLO
=Only appears in this list