Lousia Ovington independent investigation report ... - NHS North East

CHAPTER 8 – USE OF THE MENTAL HEALTH ACT AND COMPLIANCE WITH THE
CODE OF PRACTICE
130
However reasonable this may have seemed at the time and however worthy the
intention, with the benefit of hindsight, the panel could see that it had most
unfortunate consequences. By the time Louisa Ovington was transferred to
Kneesworth House the Section 38 had only five months to run before it lapsed or was
replaced by a different section, which in the event did not happen.
That apart, the Section 38 was correctly implemented and there was no suggestion
that the Act and Code of Practice were not complied with.
On 16 August 1999 Louisa Ovington was transferred to Kneesworth House Hospital
Hertfordshire, under Section 38 of the Mental Health Act.
She was classified under the Mental Health Act as suffering from mental illness, one of
four possible classifications, (which included psychopathic disorder).
COMMENT
The classifications set out, at that time, in the Act were not synonymous with
psychiatric diagnoses. They carried differing legal implications. They tended to cause
confusion and now no longer apply. In relation to the classification of the disorder
as mental illness, this is however perhaps surprising; Consultant 10 considered that
Louisa Ovington was suffering from a treatable form of psychopathy and Consultant
9 considered that mental illness was not the primary diagnosis; she was transferred
to Kneesworth for ongoing assessment of the treatability of her personality disorder.
However Kneesworth concluded that she was suffering from neither.
The Section 38 order was due to expire on 12 January 2000. When the time came,
because the hospital made an apparently last minute decision not to ask the court for
a hospital order, let alone one with a restriction order attached, Louisa Ovington was
discharged into the community very abruptly. There was no planning before discharge
as far as the panel can ascertain: certainly there was no care planning meeting until
after discharge.
At the point of discharge it appears that Consultant 11 did not appreciate that Louisa
Ovington was subject to Section 117. (Her entitlement derived from both the Section
37 under which she had been detained in the Tony White Unit and from her earlier
detention under Section 3, in 1996). Consultant 11 did however note that Louisa
Ovington should, as a matter of good practice, have a care planning meeting, albeit
some time after discharge.
COMMENT
The (then) Code of Practice to the Act clearly required that there should be planning
for aftercare before discharge and set out in some detail in chapter 27(of the Code of
Practice) how this should be done and who should be involved in the process.