This website is intended for healthcare professionals
This website is intended for healthcare professionals
Senior Lecturer in Health Law, Swansea University
Nurses and others are given general authority under section 5 of the Mental Capacity Act to act in relation to a person's care and treatment where:.
In AM v South London & Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust and The Secretary of State for Health [2013], Justice Charles held that the Mental Capacity Act 2005 could be used to treat a physical condition...
Nervous shock used to be the term used to describe psychiatric harm that arose as result of another's negligent action. It is now more accurate to refer to such harm as a psychiatric injury, but the...
‘Nursing, psychological intervention and specialist mental health habilitation, rehabilitation and care.’ .
The recent conviction of a woman for assisting another person to undertake female genital mutilation (FGM) on a three-year-old British girl during a trip to Kenya, has been hailed as evidence of the...
‘Although Mr C's general capacity was impaired by schizophrenia, it had not been established that he does not sufficiently understand the nature, purpose and effects of the treatment he refuses....
Section 117 of the Mental Health Act 1983 gives people who have been detained for treatment under the Act the right to aftercare on discharge from hospital (R v Ealing District Health Authority Ex p...
‘A single comprehensive duty covering all the ways you are called on to exercise skill and judgement in improving the mental and physical condition of the patient.’ .
Both the Mental Health Act 1983 and the Mental Capacity Act 2005 have provisions for the authorisation of a deprivation of liberty that are compliant with Article 5 of the European Convention on Human...
Children are often subject to restrictions imposed by their parents or a person acting in loco parentis with such restrictions amounting to a deprivation of liberty.
To protect the dignity of patients by ensuring that restrictions imposed to protect that person and not overly intrusive, best interests assessors are commissioned to review the restrictions and...
‘Keep to all relevant laws about mental capacity that apply in the country in which you are practising, and make sure that the rights and best interests of those who lack capacity are still at the...
The Crime (Sentences) Act 1997 introduced hospital and limitation directions into the Mental Health Act 1983. Section 45A of the Mental Health Act 1983 allows the Crown Court to issue a hospital...
When a person with a mental disorder is prosecuted it is open to them to argue that they are not guilty by reason of insanity. This legal defence is available at common law to any criminal charge. For...
The law recognises that adults have a right to determine what will be done to their bodies (Re MB (Caesarean Section) [1997]). Touching a person without consent will amount to a civil trespass to the...
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