If in the case of a person committed in custody while awaiting trial or sentence it appears to the Secretary of State that the grounds are satisfied upon which an application may be made for his admission to a hospital under Part V of this Act he may apply to the sheriff for an order that that person be removed to and detained in such hospital (not being a private hospital) as may be specified in the order; and the sheriff, if satisfied by reports from 2 medical practitioners (complying with the provisions of this section) that the grounds are satisfied as aforesaid may make an order accordingly.

An order under this section (in this Act referred to as “a transfer order”) shall cease to have effect at the expiration of the period of 14 days beginning with the date on which it is made, unless within that period the person with respect to whom it was made has been received into the hospital specified therein.

A transfer order with respect to any person shall have the like effect as a hospital order made in his case together with a restriction order in respect of him made without limit of time.

Of the medical practitioners whose reports are taken into account under subsection (1) of this section, at least one shall be a practitioner approved for the purposes of section 20 of this Act by a Health Board as having special experience in the diagnosis or treatment of mental disorder.

A transfer order shall specify the form or forms of mental disorder, being mental illness or mental handicap or both, from which the patient is found by the sheriff to be suffering; and no such order shall be made unless the patient is described by each of the practitioners whose evidence is taken into account as aforesaid as suffering from the same form of mental disorder, whether or not he is also described by either of them as suffering from the other form.