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Abstract
The Mental Health Act 2007 offers a significant conceptual departure from prior legislation in England and Wales. By abolishing important medical sub-categories and ignoring calls for capacity-based legislation, it refuses to recognise important differences between syndromes that have been carefully delineated over centuries, and denies medicine and the law common language. These ideological changes are setalongside important changes in services, but signify a new potential for mass preventive detention that will confuse detaining professionals, result in unnecessarily complex legal questions, and create a new potential for blame within a profession that has recently been inquiry (and blame) laden. We argue for the retention of sub-categorisation through a Code of Practice which has yet to be produced, or subsequent clinical practice. Professional restraint and good common sense will be necessary in the meantime.
Acknowledgements
With thanks to Drs Gunvant Patel, Lindsay Thomson, and Simon Wilson for comments on earlier drafts of this paper.