A human right to be detained? Mental healthcare after ‘Savage’ and ‘Rabone'

Abstract

SummaryThe UK courts have recently considered the management of suicidal patients in the cases of Savage and Rabone. As a result of these judgments, the case law has extended significantly the responsibilities of mental healthcare providers. In this article we discuss the repercussions of these landmark decisions which are likely to have significant consequences for mental health service providers in the UK.

Human rights in psychiatric practice: an overview for clinicians

“…In 2012, the Supreme Court concluded in another cased that the NHS trust concerned had breached its duty of care to a voluntary psychiatric in-patient who died by suicide while on leave home from a psychiatric unit. These cases, which are discussed in more detail in a fascinating paper by Rahman & Wolferstan (2013), demonstrate the very substantial extent of the positive obligation to protect the right to life by preventing suicide that appears to stem from the ECHR and Human Rights Act 1998. It is difficult, if not impossible, to see how this obligation can be fulfilled in day-to-day clinical practice.…”

“…There is a similar (although not identical) provision in Ireland, where the European Convention on Human Rights Act 2003 states that, ‘subject to any statutory provision (other than this Act) or rule of law, every organ of the State shall perform its functions in a manner compatible with the State’s obligations under the Convention provisions’ (section 3). These provisions appear to place substantial and arguably unfulfillable positive obligations on public authorities such as mental health services to protect ECHR rights including, for example, protecting the right to life by preventing suicide (Rahman 2013).…”