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MENTAL HEALTH ACT (NORTHERN IRELAND) 1961 - SECT 21

21.(1) A patient may be received into guardianship, for the period allowed by
the following provisions of this Act, in pursuance of an application (in
this Act referred to as "a guardianship application") made in accordance with
sub-sections (2) to (9).

(2) A guardianship application may be made in respect of a patient on the
grounds

(a)that he is suffering from mental illness or requires special care; and

(b)that the mental disorder from which he is suffering is of a nature or
degree which warrants his reception into guardianship under this section; and

(c)that it is necessary that he should be so received in his own interests or
for the protection of other persons.

(3) A guardianship application shall be founded on the written recommendations
in the prescribed form of two medical practitioners, which shall include in
each case

(a)a statement that in the opinion of the practitioner the conditions set out
in paragraphs (a) to (c) of sub-section (2) are complied with;

(b)such particulars as may be prescribed of the grounds for that opinion so
far as it relates to the conditions set out in paragraphs (a) and (b) of
sub-section (2); and

(c)a statement of the reasons for that opinion so far as it relates to the
conditions set out in paragraph (c) of sub-section (2), specifying whether
other methods of dealing with the patient are available, and if so why they
are not appropriate.

(4) The recommendations required for the purposes of
a guardianship application (in this Act referred to as "recommendations for
guardianship") shall satisfy the following requirements

(a)each recommendation for guardianship shall be signed on or before the date
of the application by a medical practitioner who has personally examined
the patient not more than two days before the date on which he signs that
recommendation;

(b)one recommendation for guardianship shall be given by a
medical practitioner appointed... for the purposes of section nineteen and the
other shall, if practicable, be given by the patient's medical practitioner or
by a practitioner who has previous acquaintance with the patient.

(5) The person named as guardian in a guardianship application may be [a
Health and Social Services Board] or any other person (including the applicant
himself); but a guardianship application in which a person other than [a
Health and Social Services Board] is named as guardian shall not have any
effect unless it is accepted on behalf of that person by [the Board].

[(6) Where a person named as guardian in a guardianship application is not a
Health and Social Services Board, that application shall be forwarded to the
Health and Social Services Board for the area in which that person is
ordinarily resident.]

(7) Every guardianship application shall (except where the guardian is [a
Health and Social Services Board]) be accompanied by a statement in writing by
the person named as guardian that he is willing to act as guardian.

(8) A guardianship application and any recommendation for guardianship may
describe the patient as being mentally ill or as requiring special care, or in
both those ways, but the application shall not be of any effect unless each of
the recommendations for guardianship (whether or not they also describe
the patient in both those ways) describes the patient as being mentally ill
or, as the case may be, as requiring special care.

(9) Section thirteen and sub-section (2) of section fourteen shall apply in
relation to a guardianship application as they apply in relation to an
application for admission, but subject to the following modifications, that is
to say

(a)in section thirteen, in sub-section (1) the words "shall be made in the
prescribed form addressed to the [Health and Social Services Board
administering] the hospital to which admission is sought and" shall be
omitted; and

(b)in section fourteen, in sub-section (2), for paragraph (e) there shall be
substituted

(10) A guardianship application shall be sufficient if the recommendations on
which it is founded are given either as separate recommendations, each signed
by a medical practitioner, or as a joint recommendation signed by two
medical practitioners.

© 1961 Crown Copyright

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