It’s pretty common in my job to field enquiries re whether hospital inpatients should be seen by mental health even if they decline. It’s not for me to say, of course, that’s articulated elsewhere in legislation (link to Queensland (2016) Mental Health Act here – BTW it’s a 641 page PDF). My job is to do my best in clearly communicating what’s appropriate and legal.

As you’ll see in the brief (16 seconds) video above, it’s good practice to document something re these sorts of enquiries. I usually do a quick SBAR thingy, and then – for completeness – drop a plain-language summary of mental health act criteria (which I have saved as ieMR autotext) into the file entry.

For those interested, a copy of the content of this ieMR autotext is included below.

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Discussion re consent vs involuntary psychiatric assessment.

The Mental Health Act 2016 provides a legislative framework for the treatment and care of persons with a mental illness without their consent.

One of the key rights under the Act is that a person is presumed to have capacity to make decisions about their treatment and care, and the right to consent, or not consent, to healthcare.

Involuntary mental health assessment can be imposed by completing a Recommendation for Assessment. This can be completed by a doctor or authorised mental health practitioner who has examined the person within the preceding 7 days.

The Recommendation for Assessment asks for this information:

1. The reasons you believe the person may have a mental illness

2. The reasons you believe the person may not have capacity to consent to be treated for the illness:

3. The reasons you believe that not providing involuntary treatment for the illness may result in:
i. imminent serious harm to the person or others; or
ii. the person suffering serious mental or physical deterioration

4. The reason you believe that there appears to be no less restrictive way for the person to receive treatment and care for the person’s mental illness

Recommendation for Assessment can be accessed via this link: www.health.qld.gov.au/clinical-practice/guidelines-procedures/clinical-staff/mental-health/act/forms#assessment 

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So What?

The blog post is not just about the content. The idea behind doing a screen capture video is to show people the advantage of having ieMR autotext options for you/your speciality area. Is there any stuff you find yourself typing into patient notes repeatedly? You’re busy enough – get the machine to do it for you.

It’s a see-one, do-one, teach-one kind of thing.

Well, that’s the idea, anyway.

Two blog posts in two days? WTF?

It’s a “just while I’m thinking about it” thing.

Back in 2019 I shared some of the ieMR Liaison Psych Templates I use, and yesterday I plonked the ieMR autotext I use with 1:1 AINs/Specials. Also, as announced previously, I’m mothballing the meta4RN blog in a couple of months, so if I don’t get this stuff online now I never will.

Don’t worry. I’m not intending to clog-up the internet with daily blog posts. 🙂

End

That’s it. Thanks for visiting. As always, you’re welcome to leave feedback in the comments section below.

If there’s anything you’d like to re-use/adapt that’s OK with me: this work (as with all meta4RN content) is covered by Creative Commons licence BY-NC-SA 4.0).

Paul McNamara, 16 July 2022

Short URL meta4RN.com/MHA