Mental Health - September 2009
Case law update
Negligence in mental health care
A NHS Trust was held not to have breached the
Human Rights Act where one of its patients had left hospital and
committed suicide. The woman had been an informal patient,
and the High Court held that the relevant obligations applied only
to those who were detained under the Mental Health Act 1983 (the
Trust had already admitted negligence under the common law).
Rabone and Rabone v Pennine Care NHS Trust [2009] EWHC 1827
(QB)
Disclosure in tribunal proceedings
In the first mental health tribunal appeal,
the new second-tier tribunal gave guidance as to the proper
approach where a hospital resists disclosure of confidential
third-party information. In this case, disclosure had been ordered
by the MHRT, but as the patient had in the meantime been placed on
a Community Treatment Order, the Upper Tribunal came to no
judgment. Dorset Healthcare NHS Foundation
Trust v MH (2009) UKUT 4 (AAC)
Seriously irresponsible conduct
A patient’s mental impairment would be
associated with ‘seriously irresponsible conduct’ where he had a
compulsion to pick up litter, even if that litter was in the
road. The patient had been knocked down by vehicles but
considered himself invincible. He was therefore likely to act in a
dangerous manner, and the hospital managers were right not to
discharge him from detention after an attempt by his nearest
relative to do so had been barred by his consultant psychiatrist.
R (GC) v Managers of the Kingswood Centre of Central and
North West London NHS Foundation Trust, Administrative Court,
CO/7784/2008
Capacity and sexual offences
Where someone is charged, under section 30 of
the Sexual Offences Act 2003, with having sexual activity with
someone who has a mental disorder impeding choice, it becomes
relevant to ask whether the alleged victim had capacity to choose
whether to agree to that activity. The House of Lords has
held that a person may lack of capacity with regard to activity
with one person or situation, even though she possesses it with
regard to another; and secondly, that a person may lack capacity,
even where her choice is inhibited by a fear that is irrational.
R v C [2009] UKHL 42
Lost capacity
Where a person had capacity when he gave
instructions for a will but had lost capacity by the time he
executed it, the will would be valid if, on that later occasion, he
believed that it gave effect to his previous instructions (and
those instructions continued to represent his wishes).
Perrins v Holland (2009) EWHC 1945 (Ch)
Admission under a hospital order
A hospital order will cease to have effect and
a patient’s continued detention will therefore be unlawful if he is
not admitted to hospital within 28 days of its being made. So held
the Court of Appeal, in a case in which confusion had arisen
because the order in question was amended four days after it had
been made. Time flowed, the court held, from the first event.
R (DB) v Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust [2008] EWCA
Civ 1354
Change of status pending a tribunal hearing
A mental health tribunal application made when
a patient is subject to a restricted transfer direction will lapse
when the restriction lapses. The Administrative Court also held,
however, that to avoid delay in such a case, a tribunal might treat
the application as having been made after the lapse, and proceed to
a hearing without requiring the patient to apply again. R
(MN) v MHRT (2008) EWHC 3383 (Admin)