A person admitted to hospital involuntarily on the grounds of mental illness must be reviewed by an Authorised Psychiatric Practitioner (APP) within 24 hours to determine whether the person still meets the criteria for involuntary admission, and then by the Mental Health Review Tribunal (Tribunal) within a time specified by the Mental Health and Related Services Act If the person is admitted involuntarily on the grounds of mental disturbance, the admission must be reviewed by an APP within 72 hours.

At times the mental health service has assessed that the person’s health will improve before the expiration of the time before which the admission must be reviewed by the Tribunal and so has not notified the Tribunal of the involuntary admission. On more than one occasion the person has not recovered as quickly as anticipated, and the service has been faced with the choice of changing the person’s status to voluntary when this would place him or her at risk, or detaining the person out of time.

• The community visitor became aware of a situation where the service elected to change the person’s status to voluntary after the detention was 48 hours out of time. The person was involuntarily admitted to the facility on a Sunday and should have appeared before the Tribunal within 7 days. The mental health service, believing the consumer was improving, decided not to notify the Tribunal of the need for the consumer to appear before it on the Wednesday that the hearing would have been conducted. The person’s mental health deteriorated, and when the order expired the following Sunday, he was still receiving involuntary treatment in the locked unit. Two days later, his status was changed to voluntary. He left the Unit, and on return was involuntarily admitted. The community visitor was of the view that the consumer suffered a financial detriment as a result of the service’s actions, and requested compensation for him. The service agreed.
• A consumer had been admitted involuntarily to the Joan Ridley Unit pursuant to section 42 of the Act which requires that the admission be reviewed by an APP within 72 hours. The consumer contacted the CVP complaining that the admission had not been reviewed in time. On investigation, the community visitor found that the APP review had been out of time. The mental health service issued a formal apology to the consumer.