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Section 5 | Read Section 5 | |
Application in respect of patients already in hospital. |
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This Section allows you to be detained under section 2 or section 3 if you are already in hospital. It also allows doctors or certain nurses to prevent you from leaving hospital if you are an informal patient and it is felt that you shouldn't. I.e. that you would leave before you could be placed on section 2 or 3. The Doctors holding power. Section 5(2) Under Section 5(2) you can be detained for up to 72 hours if a doctor furnishes a report to the hospital managers that he thinks you should be detained. This is to allow an assessment to see if you need detaining under a section 2 or a section 3 to take place. The power to detain you expires once the assessment has been completed. The only criterion for a Section 5(2) is that in the opinion of the doctor an Application for admission under the Act "ought to be made". The doctor who exercises this power must be the doctor in charge of your care or a particular doctor formally nominated by your responsible medical officer to act for him/her (typically the SHO). The Nurses holding power. Section 5(4) Under section 5(4) you can also be detained by some suitably qualified nurses (first level ones) for up to 6 hours. This is to give time for the doctor to see you to consider applying section 5(2). This time limit cannot be extended. The criteria are - that it appears to the nurse: that you are suffering from mental disorder to such a degree that it is necessary for your health or safety or for the protection of others for you to be immediately restrained from leaving the hospital; and that it is not practicable to secure the immediate attendance of a medical practitioner for the purpose of furnishing a report under Section 5(2). A written record of this must be made by the nurse and given to the hospital managers, or someone appointed to act on their behalf, as soon as possible. For both sections - You are not subject to the consent to treatment regulations of section 56. But treatment could be given under common law or in an emergency under section 62. If you are subsequently placed under s5(2) then the 72 hour period of the section 5(2) starts from the time the Section 5(4) came into effect. You have no right of appeal. If you run off you can be retaken provided the 72 or 6-hour periods haven't elapsed.
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