Ruddle v Secretary of State for Scotland [1999] ScotSC 24
Whilst a structured hospital environment could amount to treatment, it did not on the facts, but was mere containment; and as an anti-social personality disorder was not on the facts alleviated or prevented from deterioration as a result of any treatment interventions, it was untreatable; and as there was no need for recall, an absolute discharge followed. [MHLR.]
MHLR
The summary below has been supplied by Kris Gledhill, Editor of the Mental Health Law Reports. The full report can be purchased from Southside Online Publishing (if there is a "file not found" error, it means this particular report is not yet available online). More similar case summaries from the year 1999 are available here: MHLR 1999.
Whether a patient with a personality disorder should be discharged on the basis that he was not treatable; whether containment in a structured environment together with nursing care amounted to treatment - Noel Ruddle v Secretary of State for Scotland [1999] MHLR 159
Points Arising: Whilst a structured hospital environment could amount to treatment, it did not on the facts, but was mere containment; and as an anti-social personality disorder was not on the facts alleviated or prevented from deterioration as a result of any treatment interventions, it was untreatable; and as there was no need for recall, an absolute discharge followed.
Facts and Outcome: As the improvement in a patient’s personality disorder was the result of age and the denial of access to drugs and alcohol, which amounted to mere containment and denial of opportunity to abuse substances, and as there was no reduction of the propensity to abuse substances or other change in the features of the personality disorder, there was no medical treatment and the personality disorder was untreatable (ie there was no alleviation or prevention of a deterioration, nor was that likely), and so the patient (a restricted patient, ordered to be detained after a culpable homicide, who had initially been diagnosed as having a mental illness, schizophrenia, but whose psychotic symptoms resolved) had to be discharged absolutely (as there was no prospect of recall).