LETTERS:Proper services, not compulsory treatment
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Your support makes all the difference.From Mr Neil Confrey Sir: I have yet to read the report into the tragic death of Georgina Robinson but, from the details given in your article "Schizophrenic's life attack was `predictable' " (17 January), it seems that your editorial "Care endangering the community" (17 Jan uary) is based on a misunderstanding of the powers available under the Mental Health Act of 1983.
You state that Andrew Robinson could not be forced to take medication in the Edith Morgan Centre because compulsory treatment can be administered only in a hospital. Yet, we are told that the EMC is an acute psychiatric unit and that Mr Robinson was admitted there, under Section 3 of the Act, in June 1993. Section 3 permits detention and compulsory treatment for up to an initial period of six months and presumably Mr Robinson was subject to Section three at the time of the killing. The death of GeorginaRobinson does not reveal a "serious flaw in the law" but rather errors in the medical treatment of Andrew Robinson while he was liable to detention in hospital.
Your misinterpretation of the facts and law leads to a call for compulsory treatment in the community. A so-called "community treatment order" was not seen as appropriate by the Royal College of Psychiatrists in the proposals for community supervision made in January 1993, nor by the Department of Health's internal review "Legal powers on the care of mentally ill people in the community", published in August 1993. This latter report is the basis for the proposed power of supervised discharge which is tobe put before Parliament this session. As said by the Department of Health internal review: "Legal powers can never be a substitute for properly planned and delivered service." (para 8.19).
Service provision is the real issue. Compulsory treatment in the community is not.
Yours faithfully, NEIL P. CONFREY Confreys (solicitors)
Cardiff 17 January The writer is a mental health law specialist.
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