A snap-shot of ‘long-term’ section 17 use in South-West England
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.19164/ijmhcl.v1i17.276Abstract
The Mental Health Act Commission (MHAC) does not have a culture of visiting patients in the community, having a primary statutory duty of visiting detained patients in hospital, and no remit over patients placed under Guardianship or Supervised Discharge (s.25A). The MHAC’s statutory remit does, however, encompass patients who remain liable to be detained but are granted leave of absence from hospital, and will extend to patients who are subject to supervised community treatment upon the implementation of SCT powers in October 2008.
In an attempt to get a better understanding of patient and process issues that are likely when visiting community-based patients, the MHAC has been running some exploratory visits to detained patients on long-term section 17 leave. These visits have been carried out under the MHAC’s statutory remit. This is a brief account of one such exercise in the South-West of England.
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