Unlawful detention on mental health wards

The annual Mental Health Act report from the Care Quality Commission has highlighted how despite having two legal ways (MHA and DoLS) to lawfully detain people and ensure they have legal rights and protection mental health wards are failing to do this. The report states:

‘...we are concerned that too many people, especially those on wards for older people and those who do not have the capacity to understand their rights, are being unlawfully detained.’ 

‘...this can happen when a person is kept in hospital while not being formally detained under the Mental Health Act or having a Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards authorisation in place... MHA reviewers said that this practice has become so common it is “almost normalised”. Where patients are deprived of their liberty without a legal authorisation in place, they have no legal framework to use to appeal the deprivation of their liberty or de-facto detention.’

View the report here: https://www.cqc.org.uk/publications/monitoring-mental-health-act

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