Clause 26.—(ADMISSION FOR TREATMENT.) (Hansard, 5 May 1959)

§ Mr. Walker-Smith

I beg to move, in page 14, to leave out lines 30 to 42 and to insert: A patient may be admitted to a hospital, and there detained for the period allowed by the following provisions of this Act, in pursuance of an application (in this Act referred to as an application for admission for trea- 279 ment) made in accordance with the following provisions of this section. (2) An application for admission for treatment may be made in respect of a patient on the grounds— (a) that he is suffering from mental disorder, being—

(i) in the case of a patient of any age, mental illness or severe subnormality;
(ii) in the case of a patient under the age of twenty-one years, psychopathic disorder or subnormality,

and that the said disorder is of a nature or degree which warrants the detention of the patient in a hospital for medical treatment under this section; and. This is broadly, mutatis mutandis, similar to the Amendments which we have been discussing on Clause 25. Subsection (1) of the Clause as it stands describes the grounds on which an application for treatment may be made. Paragraph (a) specifies the class of patient to whom the Clause applies, and paragraph (b) specifies the other conditions which must be satisfied.

The Amendment has the effect that it replaces the existing subsection (1) by two new subsections. These new subsections repeat the substance of the existing subsection, with certain alterations of drafting comparable to those made in Clause 25 by the Amendment with which we have just been dealing. Just as with Clause 25, it has been thought desirable to open the Clause with a statement that patients may be admitted and detained in the circumstances specified. That is for presentational reasons and becomes subsection (1), and the grounds for the application are set out in the new subsection (2). Secondly, …warrants the detention of the patient… is substituted for …renders him suitable to be detained … for the same reasons as before. There are also further minor drafting improvements but I do not think that I need worry the House by particularising them in detail.