© 2009 The Royal College of Psychiatrists
Understanding community care law in England and Wales
Danny Allen is a consultant adult psychiatrist for Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust. He works in an assertive outreach team and in a community acute service (an acute day hospital combined with a crisis and home treatment team). In 2005 he was awarded a Master of Laws (LLM) in Mental Health Law from Northumbria University.
Correspondence: Correspondence Dr Danny Allen, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust, Harlow House, Harlow Road, High Wycombe HP13 6AA, UK. Email: danny.allen{at}obmh.nhs.uk
Although psychiatrists in England and Wales are generally familiar with the Mental Health Act 1983 and the Mental Capacity Act 2005, there is a body of law that is available to assist patients in the community with which they are generally less familiar. There are two main reasons for this. The first is that it is a rather confused amalgam of different statutes and case law affecting each other in ways that are less than clear. The other is that the care programme approach (CPA) was meant to cut through all this and make care provision straightforward. In fact, the latter has never been the case and community care law has always sat uneasily alongside the CPA, but in October 2008 the CPA was withdrawn from some patients with mental health problems. This article explains what is meant by community care law and how psychiatrists can use it to help their patients.