Mental health law resource

Overview

Sectioning bust card front

Sectioning bust card back

Table

Section Number	Length of section	Who can do it?	Can it be renewed?	What's it for?	Can they force treament?
2	28 Days	2 doctors	No	Assessment or treatment.	Yes
3	6 Months	2 doctors	Yes	Treatment only.	Yes
4	72 Hours	A doctor	No	Admittance to hospital only.	No
5(2)	72 Hours	A doctor	No	Detention only if already admitted, until two doctors can assess. AKA “power to hold”	No
5(4)	6 Hours	A mental health nurse	No	Detention only if already admitted, until two doctors can assess. AKA “power to hold”	No
18	-	A cop	-	Power to detain someone already sectioned and not in hospital, for transit to hospital. No power of entry.	No
35	28 Days	A court and a doctor	Yes	Alternative to bail if assessment of your mental health is impossible were you to be bailed.	No
37	6 Months	A court and two doctors	Yes	In place of jail or prison, as ordered by a court.	Yes
47	6 Months	The ministry of justice	Yes	Transit from a prison to a hospital as ordered by the Ministry of Justice.	Yes
135	24 Hours	A court(directing cops)	Extended once, for 12 Hours	Transit to “a place of safey”(under exceptional circumstances, a police station). Allows powers of entry.	No
137	24 Hours	A cop	Extended once, for 12 Hours	Transit to “a place of safey”(under exceptional circumstances, a police station).	No

Holding sections

Holding sections are generally for use in an emergancy situations, and are short term and do not allow forcibly medication and treatment, only supposed to be used until sufficient profesionals for a section 3 acessment can be carried out, allowing longer term acessment and treatment. They are frequently used as threats to compel people undertaking voluntary treatment to take certain medication or behave in a certain manner without actually legally compelling it.

Section 4

Section 4 is used for admittance to hospital for an emergancy, because of a mental health condition, without your consent.

General use

It's frequently used when, for example, a GP considers someone to need admitting to hospital, but they are not already admitted to hospital. Another common example is having been seen by a doctor in A&E, who decides you should be admitted.

If you are not in hospital, the ambulance service will arrange transit to the hospital, after which time a section 2 acessment will be carried out.

Powers

This section allows a doctor to admit you to hospital without your consent for 72 hours, in contrast to section 5, which allows people to hold you in hospital after already being admitted.

They can hold you in hospital, but they cannot force treatment(such as medication) on you.

Common Misuses and mistakes

The section is often confused with section 5, but the differences between them once the section has been used are minimal, and generally not worth challenging.

Section 5(2)

General use

Section 5(2) is used by a doctor to hold you in hosptial following admittance to hospital with your consent.

For example, following a suicide attempt someone may seek treatment for the physical consequenses of the attempt, and they decide they wish to leave the hospital following(or part way through) this treatment. The section may be used now, to hold them in hospital until two doctors can access whether the doctors are going to hold you under section 3 for acessment for mental health issues.

Powers

One doctor can Mandate that someone is held for up to 72 hours, and in this time they cannot be forced to take any medication or undergo any treatment. This time should be used to being a two psychiatrists to the person as soon as possible, to carry out a full acessment.

Being held doesn't nesicerily mean they'll be held on a specialised psychiatric ward- it's very possible the doctor will rely on the nurse on their ward to alert hospital security and prevent them from leaving, or a private security guard stationed to watch them.

Common Misuses and mistakes

The section can be confused with section 4, which is for admittance to hospital, and section 5(4), which is a similar section but shorter and used by a mental health nurses(a common misconception is that any nurse can use this section- only mental health or learning disabilites nurses can. See s5(4) for more details)

Section 5(4)

Section 5(4), also known as a nurses power to hold, allows someone already admitted to hospital for a mental health condition to be detained by a mental health or learning disabilities nurse

General use

This section is used by mental health nurses on people who're already admitted to hospital voluntarily, generally umpon them attempting to leave without clearances. Upon it's use they have 12 hours to get the doctor responsible for the persons care to sign off on a longer section(normally a s5(2), but sometimes a s3 accessment will be carried out).

After 8 hours of not finding the relevent doctor, they'll generally try and find any clinician to sign off on a longer section(this is common hospital policy, not law).

If a doctor cannot be found, this section can be extended for a further 12 hours. In reality this is releitivley routine, but is supposed to be an emergancy provision.

Powers

This section allows a mental health or learning disabilities nurse to hold a patient who as already been admitted for a mental health condition. The person can be held for up to 12 hours, which can be extended another 12 hours, to 24 hours, in an emergancy a doctor cannot be found.

Common Misuses and mistakes

Nurse training programs and common practice dictate that any nurse may excercise this power, however only nurses "of the prescribed class", specifically registered mental health and learning disabilites nurses may excercise this right.

An advocate may be sufficient to argue that this does not allow someone to be detained, and self advocacy can be attempted on this basis, when, for example example attempting to leave a ward which is not staffed by mental health nurses.

Treatment sections

Section 2

Section two is a long term treatment section normally used after a section three- it can be repeated indefinatly, and allows doctors to force medication or treatment.

General use

Section two will normally be used following someone being sectioned under section three, if the person is still considered a risk to themselves or others due to their mental health condition, they will be transfered to a section 2, which can run for up to six months, and repeated.