Talk:Mental Health Act 1983

Physical Illness
Are you sure that someone cannot be treated for physical illness if their refusal to accept treatment is judged to be a symptom of their mental illness? I have heard views from doctors that someone can be treated for cancer or given dialysis if their refusal is due to clinical depression.

Also, physical illness can be treated under the Mental Capacity Act section 5 if the patient lacks capacity even if the patient refuses. Barcud Coch (talk) 09:19, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Physical treatment is definitely not covered by the mental health act, even if non-concordance is caused by the mental illness. (Treatment can only be given against consent for the mental illness that person suffers from them, not for any concomitant physical health problems. There are numerous precedents in case law for this). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.105.44.27 (talk) 23:11, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

History
The history section definitely needs some citations. How was it clear that a new law was needed?174.73.5.74 (talk) 00:48, 22 July 2014 (UTC)


 * If I remember rightly, the Mental Health Act of 1959 was found to be inadequate when the courts declared that there was no authority in it for patients detained under it to be treated against their will. Until then it had just been assumed that a patient compelled to stay in a psychiatric hospital or unit was obliged to accept treatment. The Act was briefly patched up with an Amendment Act (of 1982?) until a whole new Act was devised for England and Wales in 1983. The generally similar Mental Health (Scotland) Act followed in 1984 and the Mental Health (Northern Ireland) Order followed in 1985: Stormont must have been abeyance. Larry Gostin, an American lawyer, had a lot to do with the new legislation, after which he returned to the USA. That was before widespread use of the internet, so details of the process will not be easy to retrieve. Elements of the parliamentary debates appear in Richard Jones's Mental Health Act Manual. Newspapers and professional journals from 1980-3 would also be relevant. NRPanikker (talk) 22:03, 19 November 2019 (UTC)


 * The new Mental Health Act was followed by a volume of guidance from the Department of Health and a Code of Practice. The first Code was not published: the drafts aroused opposition from the psychiatrists consulted, apparently on the grounds that it amounted to a state-imposed manual of psychiatry. A replacement Code was written by civil servants, and has gone through several versions. NRPanikker (talk) 22:03, 19 November 2019 (UTC)

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Wrong wording in the part of the article covering section II and possibly other parts?
Hello, I was reading this while bored to know more information about it, I read the parts on section II in civil sections and a little bit of other parts. I will copy and paste a few sentences from the section II part, I found it a bit strange why it's worded like this. "If the two doctors agree that the person is suffering from a mental disorder, and that this is of a nature or to a degree that, despite his refusal to go to hospital, he ought to be detained in hospital in the interest of his own health, his safety, or for the protection of others, they complete a medical recommendation form and give this to the AMHP. If the AMHP agrees that there is no viable alternative to detaining the person in hospital, they will complete an application form requesting that the hospital managers detain the person." I really don't know why it's going from "his" and "they"... I interpreted it as mainly focusing on males being sectioned. I think it needs to be changed from saying "his" "he" etc to "they" and not focusing on males or females, as we all know both males and females are admitted to mental health hospitals. Speedcuber1 (talk) 03:48, 14 August 2021 (UTC)


 * In recent years UK Statutes have generally included a provision that "he" is to be interpreted as including "she." Even without that, the canons of interpretation of UK statute law include that as a general principle. These were drawn up before it became common for "they" to be used as a singular pronoun of common gender, and before alternative pronouns such as "scho" came into common use. However, those who take it upon themselves to compose "Law for Dummies" articles usually assume that the dummies in question would not know that.NRPanikker (talk) 02:09, 30 June 2023 (UTC)