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13 J. Forensic Psychiatry & Psych. 1 (2002)

handle is hein.journals/jnlofncpy13 and id is 1 raw text is: The Journal of Forensic Psychiatry BrunnerRoutledge Ftrncis Vol 13 No 1 April 2002 1-8 EDITORIALS Too little, too late? The treatment of mentally incapacitated prisoners SIMON WILSON and ANDREW FORRESTER Prisoners in England and Wales who are mentally ill are treated against their wishes under common law only rarely and in situations of dire emergency.1 We believe that current practice is based on a mistaken interpretation of the common law, and is at odds with an evidence-based approach to the manage- ment of mental illness. MEDICAL TREATMENT OF NON-CONSENTING PRISONERS: CURRENT PRACTICE When a person suffers from a mental illness of a nature or degree that it war- rants medical treatment in a hospital, for their own health or safety or for the protection of other persons, they can be taken to hospital and treated against their wishes under the Mental Health Act 1983. The prisoner suffering from a mental illness cannot be treated in this fashion within a prison as prisons are not recognized as hospitals under the National Health Service Act 1977. Prisoners can, however, be transferred out of prison to hospital under Part 3 of the Mental Health Act 1983. This is not uncommon given the high rates of mental disorder in prisons (Gunn et al., 1991; Brooke et al., 1996; Single- ton et al., 1998). Brooke et al. (1996) estimated that the remand population The Journal of Forensic Psychiatry ISSN 0958-5184 print/ISSN 1469-9478 online © 2002 Taylor & Francis Ltd http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals DOI: 10.1080/0958518021012317 7

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