Clinical Algorithms Compulsory detention in hospital under the Mental Health Act 1983

Abstract

Mental disorder may occasionally so distort a person's perception of reality that he becomes a danger to himself or others and, at the same time, refuses any help or treatment that might be necessary to reduce this risk. In such cases there will be times when the sufferer must be deprived of his liberty for his own safety, even though such a step constitutes a major infringement of human liberty. Legal controls governing such measures have been present in Britain since the sixteenth century, and today the statutory controls relating to such powers are embodied in the Mental Health Act 1983. Many doctors may be forgiven for thinking that only psychiatrists need be concerned with the workings of this act, but this is not so. General practitioners, hospital consultants, psychiatric nurses, social workers, hospital managers, relatives, and the police are all given powers under this legislation. © 1987, British Medical Journal Publishing Group. All rights reserved.