Amendment of section 224
36.Section 10 further amends section 224, by making similar amendments to those made to section 127 referenced above. As is the case with section 127, a patient’s RMO can, with the consent of the Scottish Ministers, grant suspension of detention for a maximum of 9 months in a 12 month period. Section 10 amends this to provide that suspension of detention can now be granted for a maximum of 200 days in any 12 month period. Any period of suspension authorised which is 8 hours or less is not to be counted towards the maximum of 200 days, and periods of more than 8 hours but less than 24 hours are to be counted as one day, whether it falls within one day or spans two days.