{"id":179,"date":"2014-10-31T14:27:05","date_gmt":"2014-10-31T14:27:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.cardiff.ac.uk\/wccop\/?p=179"},"modified":"2014-10-31T14:27:05","modified_gmt":"2014-10-31T14:27:05","slug":"response-to-the-consultation-on-the-draft-mental-health-act-code-of-practice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/sites.cardiff.ac.uk\/wccop\/response-to-the-consultation-on-the-draft-mental-health-act-code-of-practice\/","title":{"rendered":"Response to the consultation on the draft Mental Health Act Code of Practice"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Department of Health\u00a0has recently <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gov.uk\/government\/consultations\/changes-to-mental-health-act-1983-code-of-practice\">consulted on a new draft\u00a0Code of Practice for the Mental Health Act<\/a>. \u00a0Professor Phil Fennell and Dr Lucy Series have written a response to the draft Code, raising concerns about its guidance concerning Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT). \u00a0The draft Code states at paragraph 13.51 that:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Currently, there is no requirement for an independent medical opinion about the appropriateness of ECT being given to a person who lacks capacity to consent to that\u00a0treatment. Such treatment could in principle be given on the basis of section 5 of the MCA.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.legislation.gov.uk\/ukpga\/2005\/9\/section\/5\">Section 5 of the Mental Capacity Act 2005<\/a>\u00a0(MCA) is commonly known as the &#8216;general defence&#8217;. \u00a0It codified provisions under\u00a0the common law doctrine of necessity\u00a0that gave\u00a0those performing acts of care and treatment the same protection against liability that they\u00a0would have obtained had the person consented, provided they reasonably believed that the person lacked the &#8216;mental capacity&#8217; to give or refuse consent to that treatment and that it is\u00a0in their best interests. \u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.legislation.gov.uk\/ukpga\/2005\/9\/section\/6\">Section 6 of the MCA<\/a>\u00a0requires that if the act of care or treatment requires restraint or restrictions on liberty, then additional requirements of proportionality and necessity must also be met\u00a0in order to rely upon the general defence. \u00a0The general defence has no automatic &#8216;procedural safeguards&#8217; designed to ensure any independent oversight of decisions made regarding a person&#8217;s mental capacity or best interests.<\/p>\n<p>In their\u00a0response to the consultation on the draft Code, Professor Fennell and Dr Series argue that\u00a0this interpretation of the use of the MCA to deliver ECT is wrong as a matter of law and may violate the human rights of patients. \u00a0You can read their submission in full here:\u00a0<em><a href=\"http:\/\/sites.cardiff.ac.uk\/wccop\/files\/2014\/10\/Response-to-the-Consultation-on-the-Draft-Mental-Health-Act-Code.pdf\">Response to the Consultation on the Draft Mental Health Act Code<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Department of Health\u00a0has recently consulted on a new draft\u00a0Code of Practice for the Mental Health Act. \u00a0Professor Phil Fennell and Dr Lucy Series have written a response to the draft Code, raising concerns about its guidance concerning Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT). \u00a0The draft Code states at paragraph 13.51 that: Currently, there is no requirement for<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1346,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-179","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-specialists","category-uncategorized"],"meta_box":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sites.cardiff.ac.uk\/wccop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sites.cardiff.ac.uk\/wccop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sites.cardiff.ac.uk\/wccop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sites.cardiff.ac.uk\/wccop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1346"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sites.cardiff.ac.uk\/wccop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=179"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/sites.cardiff.ac.uk\/wccop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":183,"href":"http:\/\/sites.cardiff.ac.uk\/wccop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179\/revisions\/183"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sites.cardiff.ac.uk\/wccop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=179"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sites.cardiff.ac.uk\/wccop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=179"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sites.cardiff.ac.uk\/wccop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}