In part one of this two-part series, Claire Burrows explores the legal framework for safeguarding vulnerable people through a deprivation of liberty, including the Mental Capacity (Amendment) Act 2019. To read the full article, log in using your MPFT NHS OpenAthens details.
Care Quality Commission finds legislation is not applied as intended due to lack of staff awareness
Mental health nurses in England must be given more time for training in the use of the Mental Health Act (MHA) 1983 if they are to advocate effectively for people under their care, warns the RCN. To read the full article, log in using your MPFT NHS OpenAthens details.
Sets out when the Secretary of State can refer patients to the First-tier Tribunal under section 67 of the Mental Health Act and how to request a referral.
Shared decision making (SDM) has been broadly advocated in health services and constitutes an important component of patient centred care and relationship based care.. To read the full article, log in using your NHS Athens details. To access full-text: click “Log in/Register” (top right hand side). Click ‘Institutional Login’ then select 'OpenAthens Federation', then ‘NHS England’. Enter your Athens details to view the article.
The placebo‐controlled, relapse prevention studies (PCRPS) have recently been recently been singled out as redundant, disproportionately harmful, unnecessary and therefore ethically impermissible (1). The logic of comparison behind PCRPS has also been questioned as they apply different methodological procedures, such as duration of treatment prior to randomization and/or different treatment discontinuation strategies (2). Furthermore, there seems to be a real threat that withdrawal syndromes and other overlapping phenomena (such as rebound effects) cannot be reliably distinguished from relapse (as primary endpoint), and as such have high confounding potential (2).. To read the full article, log in using your NHS Athens details. To access full-text: click “Log in/Register” (top right hand side). Click ‘Institutional Login’ then select 'OpenAthens Federation', then ‘NHS England’. Enter your Athens details to view the article.
Open access. To understand the views of qualified medical practitioners regarding “reasonable adjustments” and the quality of the care and treatment provided to adults with intellectual disabilities when admitted to acute hospitals as inpatients.
Miscarriages of justice occur as a result of unsafe convictions and findings and inappropriate sentences. In cases involving expert psychiatric evidence it is possible that the way evidence is presented by experts or interpreted by the courts has a direct bearing on the case. Using illustrative cases from the Criminal Division of the Court of Appeal, advice is offered to expert psychiatric witnesses on ways to reduce the likelihood of contributing to such miscarriages of justice and on how they may assist in rectifying such miscarriages, should they occur.. To read the full article, log in using your MPFT NHS OpenAthens details.
This article investigates a high-profile and ongoing dilemma for healthcare professionals (HCPs), namely whether the existence of a (legal) duty of care to genetic relatives of a patient is a help or a hindrance in deciding what to do in cases where a patient’s genetic information may have relevance to the health of the patient’s family members. To read the full article, log in using your NHS OpenAthens details.
Confidentiality is a central bioethical principle governing the provider–patient relationship. Dating back to Hippocrates, new laws have interpreted it for the age of precision medicine and electronic medical records. This is where the discussion of privacy and technology often ends in the scientific health literature when Internet-related technologies have made privacy a much more complex challenge with broad psychological and clinical implications. Beyond the recognised moral duty to protect patients’ health information, clinicians should now advocate a basic right to privacy as a means to safeguard psychological health. The article reviews empirical research into the functions of privacy, the implications for psychological development and the resigned sentiment taking hold regarding the ability to control personal data. The article concludes with a call for legislative, educational and research steps to readjust the equilibrium between the individual and ‘Big Data’.. To read the full article, log in using your NHS OpenAthens details.
Staffordshire County Council is making sure it carries out assessments quickly to ensure that people unable to make their own decisions are not held against their best interests in care homes, hospices and hospitals.
The number of Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DoLS) applications nationally has soared in recent years following a legal test case and increased in Staffordshire from fewer than 300 a year in 2013/14 to more than 3,000 per annum currently.
Open access. Prearrest diversion strategies are being adopted across the Western world, enabling the police to identify and divert people suspected of having mental disorder towards health and community services rather than the criminal justice system.
Ian Cummins looks at the experiences of people who have been subject to compulsory mental health legislation and admitted to hospital against their will.
Free access. Although informed consent models for prescribing hormone replacement therapy are becoming increasingly prevalent, many physicians continue to require an assessment and referral letter from a mental health professional prior to prescription. Drawing on personal and communal experience, the author argues that assessment and referral requirements are dehumanising and unethical, foregrounding the ways in which these requirements evidence a mistrust of trans people, suppress the diversity of their experiences and sustain an unjustified double standard in contrast to other forms of clinical care. Physicians should abandon this unethical requirement in favour of an informed consent approach to transgender care.