Mental health

Mental health

Mental health review tribunal ordering patient's conditional discharge - health authority's obligation to meet conditions not absolute - continued detention not breach of convention right to libertyR (K) v Camden and Islington Health Authority: CA (Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers MR, Buxton and Sedley LJJ ): 21 February 2001The applicant was compulsorily detained under sections 37 and 41 of the Mental Health Act 1983.

A mental health review tribunal ordered her discharge with conditions.The health authority for the area in which she was required by the tribunal to live was unable to comply with the conditions as to psychiatric supervision, despite having taken all reasonable steps.

The applicant sought judicial review.Mr Justice Burton refused the application on the ground that the health authority's duty was not absolute, but required only that all reasonable steps be taken to comply with the tribunal's decision.

The applicant appealed.

Richard Drabble QC and Fenella Morris (instructed by Hodge Jones & Allen) for the applicant.

Charles Bar (instructed by Beachcroft Wansbroughs) for the health authority.Held, dismissing the appeal, that health authorities were under a duty imposed by section117 of the 1983 Act to provide after-care facilities for patients discharged from mental hospitals; that that duty was not an absolute obligation but required the health authority to use its best endeavours to procure for a patient the care and treatment in the community considered by the tribunal to be prerequisites for the patient's discharge; and that where a health authority was unable to meet the tribunal's conditions despite using its best endeavours, the patient's continuing detention did not violate the right to liberty conferred by article 5 of the European Convention on Human Rights, as enacted by the Human Rights Act 1998.

(WLR)