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> Patients Detained Under a Hospital Order and Patients Detained Under a Hospital Order with Restrictions
Patients Detained Under a Hospital Order and Patients Detained Under a Hospital Order with Restrictions
Patients detained under a hospital order can be discharged by the RMO and the Hospital Managers but not by their Nearest Relative and can only apply to an MHRT after the first six months of detention. The Nearest Relative of a patient subject to a Hospital order can also apply to the MHRT.
Patients Detained under a Hospital Order with Restrictions
Restricted patients cannot be discharged by their Nearest Relative and can only be discharged by the RMO or the hospital managers with the consent of the Home Secretary. Restricted patients can only apply to an MHRT after the first six months of detention. Nearest Relatives of patients subject to a Restriction Order have no right of appeal to the MHRT.
Where a MHRT decides that a restricted patient can leave hospital, the MHRT can order that the patient be conditionally discharged. This means that the Home Secretary may recall the patient to hospital at any time. In most cases the MHRT will attach conditions to the conditional discharge, such as requiring the patient to live wherever specified by the professionals appointed to supervise the patient in the community. Failure to comply with such conditions is likely to lead to the patient being recalled to hospital.
A House of Lords’ decision considered the position of a patient whose conditional discharge has been ordered, but who remains in detention because the conditions of the discharge cannot be met. It was held that this continued detention did not breach Article 5 of the Convention as long as the legality of the detention could be periodically reconsidered.
Transferred prisoners have the right to apply to the MHRT during the first six months of their detention. The MHRT can inform the Secretary of State that in the opinion of the Tribunal, if the patient were subject to a restriction order he would be entitled to be absolutely or conditionally discharged; if the patient is not conditionally discharged the tribunal can recommend that the patient should remain in hospital. Within 90 days of the Tribunal ’s decision the Secretary of State shall notify the hospital the patient may be either conditionally or absolutely discharged. If the Secretary of State does not give that notification and the Tribunal have not recommended that where the Secretary of State does not do so he should remain in hospital, then the patient will be transferred to prison. Life sentence prisoners who the Tribunal considers would be entitled to be conditionally or absolutely discharged will then have the usual rights of appeal to the Parole Board whether or not they remain detained in hospital as a result of a Tribunal recommendation or whether they are returned to prison.
The nearest relative of a patient subject to a transfer direction with or without a restriction order have no right of appeal to the MHRT.
