To think it is too hard to get someone sectioned

[fratricidalwoman]

It seems that there is a very low threshold for capacity and even if this is not passed help isn’t always forthcoming. Or am I missing something?

That would be very true if my post had been asking for advice, Tobuy

As it is, my personal life will stay there. It is a general thread about MH and sectioning.

In my experience MH services see detention as the last option and would like to explore all treatments in the community first if they do not pose a risk to them selves and others.

and rightly so, but I think the point that the OP is making, which is certainly my experience too is that there is a lack of treatment and support being offered in the meantime and even when those threshold points are reached, there is still no help and sadly, in some cases that literally is meaning lives are lost or damaged beyond recognition.

One of my highlights was having got a GP appointment (which was quite hard to get in the first place) and having bodily dragged my ex down there, he and I spilled our guts about his suicidal thoughts and attempts and the voices he could hear and the only help we were given? A whale noises CD for relaxation. Seriously. I wish I could tell you I am making this up or exaggerating but I shit you not.

TRIGGER TRIGGER
6 hours later I came back from work to find him trying to hang himself from our stairs.

Personally, I know of far too many 'individual' cases where MH services have been threadbare not to think the MH system is flawed. Or, perhaps it's not the case that it is 'flawed', as such, just woefully under-provisioned. At every level.

To everyone on this thread who has experienced/is experiencing this - wither for themselves or for a loved one - .

It's not much (the sympathy) but , bloody hell, it's such a tough and heart-breaking and frustrating experience.

@hatsgirl has it summed up.

Lack of capacity on its own is not a reason to detain someone under the MHA. Many many people lack capacity, but are inappropriate for sectioning.

It is hard to get sectioned for very good reason as PP have stated. I do have sympathy for what you are experiencing, but usually the professionals are making the best decision they can within the MHA.

Hmm ... I wish I was as confident!

I have a close family member who has been sectioned several times, and been admitted voluntarily twice. One on occasion, he was admitted rather later than he should have been. My mother had been pleading with his CPN to get him admitted (she was dealing with him on her own, because my father was working away), but to no avail.

One day, the CPN happened to call round when my father was home for a few days. My brother threatened my father with a knife (because pa wouldn't lend bro £10k to patent his non-existent inventions!) in front of the CPN ad was sectioned within the hour.

Withdrawing someone's liberty, without them having broken any laws, is the biggest sanction we have in our society. It is quite rightly used as a last resort when that person is believed to be a risk to themselves or others.

Capacity is a different matter entirely. If someone doesn't have the capacity to manage their own affairs, someone else can have power of attorney to manage them on their behalf, or the court of protection can appoint someone impartial to do it. Organisations that provide residential care for people with learning disabilities often hold corporate appointeeships so they can manage residents' finances, benefits etc.

People can be sectionable but have capacity, lack capacity but not be sectionable, or lack capacity and be such a risk that they are sectionable.

Yes. It took me about a year to finally get my brother sectioned and he got to the point where he had to be placed in a high security unit with criminals because he was was so far into his psychosis. He was eating dog poo, hurting himself, not eating (food) for weeks and he was so bad; worse than he had ever been before. He tried to light a fire at the first secure unit and after that they decided to section him and sent him to a high security unit. They were just going to send him home because he said he was okay and felt fine he had dog poo in his pockets, dead mice and a dead bird and he had showed the nurses this and even ate a dog poo in front of one of them but yeah he was fine

He had not relapsed in 10 years so we had no support and he wasn't under any team.

Literally no one wanted to help because he's an adult and refused treatment. He refused treatment because they were all Nazi vampires and wanted to kill him

I went to the GP and phoned every mental health service I could find and no one cared. I phoned an ambulance 3 times and they just said he's not hurting anyone so leave him be. The police said exactly the same when he was dancing around the town centre.

I finally had to drag him to a&e and sat there for 15 hours until someone helped us. I refused to move and I had completely lost it with him at this point and I think he was too scared to run away from me. They finally got the crisis team to come see us and he was taken to a secure unit voluntarily where he lit a fire just before they were going to send him home and he was then sectioned for 6 months.

waffles

Eerily similar.

My mother has tried to have me sectioned because I asked her to explain why she told my sister I'd been cruel to her when I couldn't find a specific Facebook page she wanted me to look at.

It's good that it's difficult to section people. Yes, our mental health services are overstretched and yes, there are lots of people who need help who aren't getting it. But it should never be easy to section people. Never.

I don't think the problem is really with the level at which sectioning is set. But I think there is a major problem with the appalling lack of services to help people who do not pass that threshold.

No I don't think it's too hard at all.

I do think the services outside of being detained are inadequate.

Capacity has nothing to do with being sectioned. I certainly don't think the threshold for capacity is too low.

The medical threshold should be high to deprive someone of their liberty. The problem comes when decisions are made based on (lack of) funding/beds rather than clinical need

You have to be a threat to other people now rather than yourself and other people. Yes it’s shit.

You have to be a threat to other people now rather than yourself and other people

That's not true.

Decisions on whether to section someone or not are mostly done because the person is deemed to have a judgement impairing illness rather than lacking in capacity which as others have pointed out is something different.
Sometimes people can hold it together in front of MH professionals for short periods which can make it difficult for those who have to make the decision onthe evidence in front of them. It is definitely not a decision that is taken lightly but difficult to comment further as we don't really know your situation.

Kindly don’t tell me what’s true and what isn’t. I’ve lived and breathed this shit for nearly 7 years.

gamerchick

I am sorry you have been having a difficult time but it hasn't changed.

The test is the same as it was in 1983.

Gamerchick is pointing out that the pressures are so great on services and so many beds have been withdrawn that they are now in a position where they have to prioritise sectioning those who are a risk to others over those who are a risk to themselves.

She is right. I was a CPN for 15 years.

Rainy

I disagree that there is even an unwritten change. Maybe where you and Gamer are based things are different.

The fact remains there has been no change in the threshold. Everybody agrees there is a lack in resources.

OP, I agree with you, from expereance it is very hard to convince mental health teams and/or emergency services that someone needs to be sectioned. We are told ‘for someone to be sectioned they must be a harm to themselves or others’, sadly too often the person is not sectioned until they have actually hurt someone or themselves, even then they may still not be sectioned, just seen by a doctor and sent away. My DSS was sectioned for the 3rd time last Christmas (Christmas Eve), his DM begged for weeks for him to be sectioned, he had attempted to hurt himself and members of the family, he was psychotic, paranoid and depressed. Everyone was at breaking point by the time he was finally sectioned as he refused to let people leave the house. The time before he stepped out infront of a lorry saying he wanted to end his life, he still wasn’t sectioned until a few days later, when he was sectioned they could not find him a bed and he was sent 200 miles away.

There are so many problems with how mental health is dealt with, there’s a lack of beds, lack of mental health nurses and a lack of money. I’m sure lives are lost that could have been saved if things were different.

My nan aged 91 was sectioned last spring for the first time in her life by her gp because she was delusional, agitated & putting herself in danger.

She went to an EMI unit & was covertly medicated with Risperidone so she was a lot calmer but then suddenly died of Pneumonia.

The whole situation was very sad but I'm glad she was sectioned as we (the family) couldn't cope; even if we were with her 24 hours a day she was too agitated, like a tortured soul.

Bit calmer now. Thanks, everyone, and sorry for my overly sardonic reply up the thread. I was feeling exceptionally aggrieved at the time.

I do understand, of course, it is right that it isn’t easy to have people sectioned. I suppose my issue is that the criteria seems to have less to do with peoples professional judgement and more to do with a criteria checklist. For example, my relative was asked today what year it was - he got it wrong, but could easily have known it was 2017 but have been eating shit, to use someone else’s example.

Sorry for those who have suffered as well

but usually the professionals are making the best decision they can within the MHA.

No, they're making the best decision they can within available resources. No point in doing an MHA assessment if there's nowhere to place the patient.