Health Service Commissioner : first report for session 1982/83 : selected investigations completed April- September 1982.

  • Great Britain. Health Service Commissioner.
Date:
1983
Catalogue details

Licence: Open Government Licence

Credit: Health Service Commissioner : first report for session 1982/83 : selected investigations completed April- September 1982. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    25/192 page 23
    22. I have also seen the clinical notes which, in addition to the failure of the attempt to discuss the daughter with her parents on 16 October, also record on 23 September that ‘parents contacted representing [the daughter] a case conference—refused to attend’. The consultant psychiatrist discussed the case with my officer and told her that the medical and nursing staff had had difficulties with the parents for many years. He described the ward as “the most liberal, humane and dedicated’ in the Unit; he recognised that there could be an occasional lapse in communication, but he was sure that there would not have been any deliberate misrepresentation or unkindness from any of the staff. 23. In the SA’s reply of 12 November to the complainant about these complaints, he explained that, although the nursing staff had ‘spent a great deal of effort persuading [the daughter] to stay on the ward that day’, she left when the staff changed over and the number available for observation of patients was lower than usual. The SA said that the night staff had notified the police at the parent’s request and that the police were notified when their daughter returned to the ward the next morning. He also ex- plained that Section 25 of the Mental Health Act 1959 had had to be in- voked by the consultant psychiatrist and the daughter’s general practitioner to transfer her to the special care unit for 28 days as she was considered to be urgently in need of such care; and because it had been impossible to arrange a meeting with the complainant and her husband to discuss their daughter and obtain their consent to her being transferred under Section 26 of the Mental Health Act for the longer treatment at the special care unit which was considered necessary. The SA informed the complainant and her husband that the front door of the Unit was locked at 8 pm and the side doors before 10 pm (although he emphasised that this was rather to keep intruders out and that they had to maintain fire exits); and these security arrangements were confirmed by my officer when she visited the Unit at night. Findings 24. The AHA did not accept that they had failed to offer the daughter adequate care and supervision. I recognise the problems encountered by staff over the supervision of informal patients in an open ward and I have found no evidence that they were culpable. I believe, however, that they did fail to notify the parents of their daughter’s return to the ward on the morning of 16 October. I criticise them for this. 25. On the oral evidence given to my officers and the contemporaneous written records, I am satisfied that the hospital made efforts to arrange a meeting with the complainant and her husband to discuss their daughter’s condition. When these proved fruitless, and the doctors decided in their clinical judgment that she needed to be compulsorily detained, I consider they had no alternative to the course of action they took—to place her under a Section 25 Order. I do not uphold this aspect of the complaint.
    digitised image 1
    digitised image 2
    digitised image 3