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The Mental Health Act 1983 – what does the patient think?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

C. W. Rusius
C. W. Rusius*
Affiliation:
Doncaster Royal Infirmary, Armthorpe Road, Doncaster DN2 5LT
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Mental disorders may seriously impair insight and therefore cause some patients to refuse potentially life-saving treatment which they would otherwise accept. Opinion on the ethics of current legislation regarding compulsory admission and treatment varies with open debates leading to heated and emotive exchanges. During the reading of the 1982 Mental Health Amendment Bill intense lobbying of MPs took place (Bluglass, 1984). Some argued against compulsory detention because of its infringement on personal liberty while others argued that it was necessary for the adequate treatment of mental disorders which impair insight. They pointed out one's right to receive appropriate treatment whether or not insight is impaired.

Type
Original articles
Information
Psychiatric Bulletin , Volume 16 , Issue 5 , May 1992 , pp. 268 - 269
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1992

References

Blueglass, R. (1984) The origins of The Mental Health Act 1983: doctors in the House. Bulletin of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, 8, 127–134.Google Scholar
David, A. S. (1990) Insight and psychosis. The British Journal of Psychiatry, 156, 798–808.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
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