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Disagreements between psychiatrists and social workers over compulsory admissions under the 1983 Mental Health Act

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Robert G. Sammut
Affiliation:
Hackney Hospital, Homerton High Street, London E9 6SR
Howard Sergeant
Affiliation:
Royal Free Hospital and Royal Free Hospital School of Medicine, Pond Street, London NW3 2QG
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We followed up 33 cases over three months where psychiatrists recommended the compulsory detention in hospital of mentally ill men and women but social workers disagreed. Seventeen of the cases were detained a mean of 25 days after the index date of assessment by social workers, but the group as a whole spent fewer days in hospital than a “control” set of patients whose detention had been agreed (P = 0.02). The terms of reference of the Mental Health Act Commission should be extended to cover such cases.

Type
Original articles
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists 1993

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