Mental Health Act 1959

26 Admission for treatment

(1) A patient may be admitted to a hospital, and there detained for the period allowed by the following provisions of this Act, in pursuance of an application (in this Act referred to as an application for admission for treatment) made in accordance with the following provisions of this section.

(2) An application for admission for treatment may be made in respect of a patient on the grounds—

(a) that he is suffering from mental disorder, being—

(i) in the case of a patient of any age, mental illness or severe subnormality;

(ii) in the case of a patient under the age of twenty-one years, psychopathic disorder or subnormality; and that the said disorder is of a nature or degree which warrants the detention of the patient in a hospital for medical treatment under this section ; and

(b) that it is necessary in the interests of the patient's health or safety or for the protection of other persons that the patient should be so detained.

(3) An application for admission for treatment shall be founded on the written recommendations in the prescribed form of two medical practitioners, including in each case a statement that in the opinion of the practitioner the conditions set out in paragraphs (a) and (b) of subsection (2) of this section are complied with ; and each such recommendation shall include—

(a) such particulars as may be prescribed of the grounds for that opinion so far as it relates to the conditions set out in the said paragraph (a); and

(b) a statement of the reasons for that opinion so far as it relates to the conditions set out in the said paragraph (b), specifying whether other methods of dealing with the patient are available, and if so why they are not appropriate.

(4) An application for admission for treatment, and any recommendation given for the purposes of such an application, may describe the patient as suffering from more than one of the forms of mental disorder referred to in subsection (2) of this section; but the application shall be of no effect unless the patient is described in each of the recommendations as suffering from the same one of those forms of mental disorder, whether or not he is also described in either of those recommendations as suffering from another of those forms.

(5) An application for admission for treatment made on the ground that the patient is suffering from psychopathic disorder or subnormality, and no other form of mental disorder referred to in subsection (2) of this section, shall state the age of the patient, or, if his exact age is not known to the applicant, shall state (if it be the fact) that the patient is believed to be under the age of twenty-one years.