Adults with Incapacity Amendment Act: consultation
An enhanced section 47 certificate to prevent a person being treated for a physical condition from leaving hospital, whether temporarily or permanently
Currently Scots law provides no specific process to authorise measures to prevent a person being treated in hospital for a physical condition from leaving. This gap was identified in the Scottish Law Commission’s report on Adults with Incapacity in 2014.
We agree with Scottish Mental Health Law Review that there is a significant gap in the law that needs to be remedied given the lack of a specific process to authorise measures to prevent a person being treated for a physical condition from leaving hospital, whether temporarily or permanently.
We are proposing that an additional process is required to enable authorisation of any necessary measures to prevent an adult with incapacity from going out of a hospital unaccompanied and that this process should be connected to the process of authorising medical treatment.