Mental Health Act 1959

33 Application for guardianship

(1) A patient may be received into guardianship, for the period allowed by the following provisions of this Act, in pursuance of an application (in this Act referred to as a guardianship application) made in accordance with the following provisions of this section.

(2) A guardianship application may be made in respect of a patient on the grounds—

(a) that he is suffering from mental disorder, being—

(i) in the case of a patient of any age, mental illness or severe subnormality;

(ii) in the case of a patient under the age of twenty-one years, psychopathic disorder or sub-normality ;

and that his disorder is of a nature or degree which warrants the reception of the patient into guardianship under this section; and

(b) that it is necessary in the interests of the patient or for the protection of other persons that the patient should be so received.

(3) The person named as guardian in a guardianship application may be either a local health authority or any other person (including the applicant himself); but a guardianship application in which a person other than a local health authority is named as guardian shall be of no effect unless it is accepted on behalf of that person by the local health authority for the area in which he resides.

(4) Every such application shall be forwarded to the local health authority therein named as guardian, or, as the case may be, to the local health authority for the area in which the person so named resides, and, except where the person so named is the local health authority, shall be accompanied by a statement in writing by the person so named that he is willing to act as guardian.

(5) Subsections (3) to (5) of section twenty-six and sections twenty-seven and twenty-eight of this Act shall apply in relation to a guardianship application as they apply in relation to an application for admission for treatment, but subject to the following modifications, that is to say—

(a) in section twenty-six, references to subsection (2) of that section, and to paragraph (a) or paragraph (b) of that subsection, shall be construed as references to subsection (2) of this section and to paragraph (a) or paragraph (b) of that subsection, and in paragraph (b) of subsection (3) of that section the words from " specifying " to the end of the paragraph shall be omitted;

(b) in subsection (1) of section twenty-seven, the words " shall be addressed to the managers of the hospital to which admission is sought, and " shall be omitted;

(c) subsection (3) of section twenty-eight shall be omitted and for paragraph (e) of subsection (4) of that section there shall be substituted the following paragraph:—

“(e) the person named as guardian in the application”.