Section 4: for emergency use only

 

I’ve looked at section 2 and section 3 of the Mental Health Act on this channel, so I’m now going to look at section 4, which is the other civil section for admission to hospital.

Section 4 is explicitly referred to as “an emergency application”. The AMHP, when completing their form, has to state:

In my opinion it is of urgent necessity for the patient to be admitted and detained under section 2 of the Act and compliance with the provisions of Part 2 of the Act relating to applications under that section would involve undesirable delay.

This means that the AMHP only needs one medical recommendation to make the application rather than the two required for section 2 or 3.

The Code of Practice states:

Section 4 should be used only in a genuine emergency, where the patient’s need for urgent assessment outweighs the desirability of waiting for a second doctor.

In this video I discuss circumstances in which use of section 4 might be justified.