How are psychiatrists contacted to do mental health act assessment

[Takemebackto]

At my sons recent mental health act assessment. His psychiatrist said she had been called in to undertake his assessment and was actually on leave. Surely if she was on leave she wouldn’t be able to be contacted?

If the person "on call" calls in sick, someone has to step up. Maybe that's what happened. They will have a work phone.

Psychiatrists get paid extra to do mental health act assessments so are often happy for the AMPH who coordinates the assessment to contact them. They may have agreed to be on call as part of an on call rota . In the mental health team I work in we have the phone numbers for our psychiatrists who often don't mind being contacted about people they are involved with.

She said she was contacted as she knows him. I thought it had to be an independent doctor?

I would assume she means she knows him professionally, not personally?

Not for a standard MHA assessment for sections such as 2 or 3. It is considered good practice for the Psychiatrist to know the Patient and their history, there needs to be another medical opinion either the
GP who knows the Patient or one with extra training. The AMPH is actually the one who has the final legal say about detention not the Doctors. There are certain situations where an independent psychiatrist is involved with certain treatments and administration of medication.

Thank you for the replies. Yes she’s his community psychiatrist.

It's best practice for one if the doctor's enacting the section to know the patient and one to be independent.

Very common for psychiatrists to be rung to come in during time off in my experience. There is a massive national shortage if psychiatrists, and it's much better for the patient to have a familiar face.

It just feels a bit horrible that she was called in as everyone needs their down time.

Don't worry, she wouldn't do anything she really didn't want to. As a pp said, she'll get paid extra for it.

If it’s his community psychiatrist they won’t have been paid extra to do it- they get paid for oncall, which it sounds like she was doing. The second opinion/ independent doctor does get paid by each assessment (regardless of whether or not they complete an application).

Is there any particular worry you have about her involvement? Do you have any concerns about the decision that was made? It is an incredibly stressful event for you to go through as a parent. Do you have support for yourself if you need it?

Don't worry about it, she shouldn't really have said that to you as you've enough to worry about. I doubt she meant for you to fret over it.

His psychiatrist wouldn't have been contacted whilst on AL, if she didn't want to be/accept it. I suspect she was happy to be asked & involved because he's her patient.

Also- It's lockdown, annual leave is just a week sat at home. She wasn't interrupted whilst sat on the beach in Bali.

I wouldn’t worry OP. Psychiatrists are paid handsomely for going MHAs, she was probably quite happy to be called in and be paid for the inconvenience!

When I was a mental health Nurse it was best practice have the psychiatrist and patients own Gp to carry out the MHA assessment but if one was not available we had a list of section 12 approved psychiatrist,s to undertakes the assessment and they do get paid very well for this .