Administration
New Statutory Forms
Update: 9.10.08 Forms will be avilable to pre-order from Monday 13 October. They will be despatched from the following Monday (20 October). The regulations to correct a few mistakes in the forms included in the original regulations have now been laid. They are at:
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From 3 November 2008, all the statutory forms for use in connection with the Mental Health Act 1983 are changing.
From that date, the wording of the forms used must correspond to the up-to-date versions of the forms in Schedule 1 of the Mental Health (Hospital, Guardianship and Treatment) Regulations 2008. (See below for a note about changes to those forms which are expected to be made before 3 November).
Purchasing Designed Versions of the Forms
Like now, designed versions of all the forms will be available to purchase from 3MSPSL through the NHS Forms Contract (3MSPSL took over from Astron/RR Donnelly as the supplier for this contract earlier this year).
Most NHS bodies will already have an account with 3MSPSL for the NHS Forms Contract. Once the products are ready to order 3MSPSL will add the forms to the "Mental Health Tab" of the online ordering system. This will show the units of issue and price. The contract states that all deliveries be made within 6 working days of orders being placed, therefore any form ordered by 22nd October will be received in good time.
Other NHS bodies, local authorities and independent hospitals can also purchase forms through this Contract, but will need to register first.
Any organisation that is not already registered to order Secure (e.g. Prescriptions) or Non Secure Forms (e.g. Dental forms, GOS forms) from the National NHS Contract (via 3MSPSL) should email mentalhealth@spsl.uk.com in order to register their need to purchase the forms. Following this a reply containing a pro forma to complete, detailing Organisation name, Invoice Address, Delivery Address etc, will be returned to you. This will then allow an online purchase account to be created.
If there is any reason that you cannot email, please telephone 0845 610 1112 and choose option 3 and they will be able to help with your registration.
The individual that registers should be the responsible person in the organisation for ordering stationery/forms and the one that does so on a regular basis. They will be the person that the NHS will see as the "super user" of the on line ordering system, so they will be able to set up other users, and will manage all the account activity. Unfortunately we cannot give any advice as to who that person is locally.
The helpline for the NHS Forms Contract is 0845 610 1112 choosing option 3.
Corrections to the Forms
A number of minor errors have come to light in the forms in Schedule 1 of the Mental Health (Hospital, Guardianship and Treatment) Regulations 2008 as laid before Parliament in May. The regulations will need to be amended accordingly in advance of 3 November (subject to Parliament).
If you are planning to design your own forms, you should make sure that they reflect those amendments when made.
The changes to be made are:
- Form A7 (section 3 joint medical recommendation) – the form should have required both doctors to state (separately) the date on which they examined the patient. Accordingly, after “I [PRINT name and address of second practitioner]” will be added “last examined this patient on [date]”.
- Form H2 (section 5(4) – nurse’s record) – In the first paragraph (b), the words in brackets should be (“who is not a registered medical practitioner)” rather than just a “registered practitioner”. Also, towards the end of the form, sub-paragraph (d) should read “in Sub-Part 2 of the register, whose entry includes an entry to indicate the nurse’s field of practice is learning disabilities nursing”. (The original version refers incorrectly to “mental health nursing”).
- Form CTO8 (section 21B – authority for extension of community treatment period after absence without leave for more than 28 days) – towards the end of the form, the instruction “Complete the following only if the authority for detention is due to expire within that period of two months” should read “Complete the following only if the community treatment order is due to expire within that period of two months”.
- Form CTO11 (section 64C(4) – Part 4A certificate) – at the top of the form, the instruction “To be completed on behalf of the responsible hospital” is to be deleted (the form is actually to be completed by a SOAD).
Tina Kavanagh and Caroline Russell of Hertfordshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust have produced a table comparing the old and new forms.
 | The Lead for this workstream is Yens Marsen-Luther. Read Reforming the Appeals Process written by Yens and published in February 2007's Mental Health Today. Also, you can download Improving Access to Mental Health Review Tribunals, co-authored with Bernie O'Hare and published in June 2008's MHT. |