To think there are people who play the system to get detained under the mental health act

[Whyohwhy80]

Seen a lot of it on tik tom people
lyinf in hospital beds after purposefully getting themselves detained by the police smiling and laughing

There are lots of mentally ill people left to it for me to think there are large amounts of people "faking" Mental illness to the degree that requires arrest or hospitalisation.

Do you know the level of need required to be sectioned?

Do you know how incredibly hard it is to get someone sectioned, and how high the bar is for getting a mental health bed?

Do you mean sectioned or detained? For the former you need the input of two doctors - one of whom needs to certified under Section 12 of the MHA - as well as an AMHP (Approved Mental Health Professional) such as a very senior social worker or nurse to coordinate the assessment. It is a massive thing to deprive a person of their liberty, it is NOT easy to get it done.

Also just to add, the vast majority of TikTok is such a load of total crap anyway - if a TikTokker told me it was raining I would put my head outside the window before taking an umbrella out with me.

It’s actually very difficult to get sectioned. I know because of the experience of a family member.

If detained by the police alone it's only a s135/136 and you can only be kept at a place of safety for 24 hours, extendable by 12 hours if an AMHP has not been able to assess you in that time. The police are not undertaking full MHAct assessments and their threshold for taking someone to/ keeping them at a place of safety under s135/6 is going to be lower than the threshold for detention under s2, which is perfectly reasonable. They aren't expected to be MH professionals and they have to try and keep people safe.

I highly doubt many people actually manage to get detained under s2 following a full MHAct assessment by an amhp and s12 dr just for shits and giggles. Pressure on mh beds is huge.

Don’t be ridiculous, being sectioned is a legal and complex situation and mental health support is stretched for people who really need it.

Stop believing any old nonsense you see on TikTok.

YABVU @Whyohwhy80.

Do you think the police and medical professional are that stupid?! C’mon

I work with people subject to the Mental Health Act. In my experience, there are very rarely people who will play up their symptoms and over-egg their situation in order to try and secure a voluntary admission, this is usually because they actually prefer being in hospital to trying to function in the outside world, but it's very rare and I can only recall witnessing it twice in over 15 years.

I can't recall single instance of someone being detained under the MHA when they weren't obviously, and clearly very unwell, however, I have seen plenty of cases whereby a person would have undoubtedly been detained in an ideal world, but due to lack of resources this did not happen, and they were sent back out into the community.

Insanely unreasonable.

Having someone sectioned is exceedingly difficult, even in what sometimes appears to be the most obvious cases.

Also why would anyone want to be sectioned?!

I suggest getting off tik tok if you believe everything you see on it.

what hospital beds? There are few available. Most of the psyc hospital space was sold off to build "luxury flats". One day someone will look into the vested interests who lobbied for so much to be sold off for the fantasy of "care in the community".

Put the Internet down.

As with any system you will people paying the system and taking advantage

having briefly volunteered in mental health
1st one it’s incredibly difficult to get section 2nd these places are somewhere you would pick to be

problem is they can request medical intervention and they have to get it
nir quickly assessed and straight back to custody

You'd be surprised. It does happen, but normally all they actually get is a voluntary admission. I've sat through meetings with psychiatrists and CMHT where the service user was pleading to be taken back into hospital, but this was refused purely because the professionals simply did not believe the person was sufficiently ill/dysfunctional to merit it.

Apologies I meant why would they want to be sectioned as some kind of advantage in life rather than because they need mental health support

That is one of the weirdest things I have ever heard! Are your sure they are genuinely detained, not just pretending?

Police powers of detention are relatively limited and short lived. They can act to take someone to a "place of safety" under Section 136 of the MHA, but detention is for a max of 36 hours. Longer detentions, mainly Sections 2 & 3 require the approval of 2 Approved Mental Health Professionals.

Assuming these posts are real : people are getting themselves detained by the police for tik tok views. Absolutely bizarre but:

1. I don't see how this is "playing the system". It sounds like an outright abuse of it for clicks by people who aren't actually unwell.
2. I'd be utterly amazed if a police detention led to a longer hospital stay. Psych hospital beds are in incredibly short supply and people often don't get one when they need it.

Psych hospitals are pretty unpleasant and tough places to be, many people who are detained find it traumatic and there's just no reason I can see for someone to try to get into hospital unless they really need to. What gains were you imagining?

It is really hard to get detained. I don't see anything wrong in posting about it online though. It can be educational in a way. My mum thinks everyone in MH wards are in straightjackets. The truth is, it is boring as hell.

Sectioned or detained for a few hours under police powers because they're drunk, on drugs, at risk to themselves or others

Well there are rare circumstance where the individual's life is so messed up it's actually easier for them to be in hospital as a form of respite. They get peace and quiet, relatively speaking, because wards are usually anything but peaceful and quiet, but if your home is not secure and you keep the company of questionable individuals, hospital does begin to look peaceful by comparison. Also, you have someone else providing food, hygiene facilities etc, so as much as the idea sounds grim to most normal people, it actually can be attractive to people with really chaotic lives who want a break from it, hence why they'll agitate to be admitted even when they aren't particularly unwell.

Think of it as a holiday/spa break/respite break.

Well they obviously do play the system as they ensure they get on a 136 leading to an amhp assessment rather than engaging. Let people know where they are so the police come and find them then refuse to go with them how is that not playing the system?

Well they obviously do play the system as they ensure they get on a 136 leading to an amhp assessment rather than engaging. Let people know where they are so the police come and find them then refuse to go with them how is that not playing the system?

Do you mean a stay in a psychiatric hospital though? That’s one thing but the police is presumably talking about people in a&e with the police, filming TikTok’s, not a desire to be detained for a few weeks