Coronavirus Act 2020

Required medical evidence for hospital directions

15 (1) A court may give a hospital direction under section 174 (when passing custodial sentence, for the removal to and detention in hospital of a convicted person) where the court—

(a) is satisfied that complying with the requirement under that provision for the evidence of at least two registered medical practitioners in accordance with that provision is impractical or would involve undesirable delay, and

(b) is satisfied on the written or oral evidence of a single relevant medical practitioner of the matters of which it would (but for this paragraph) have to be satisfied on the evidence of at least two practitioners as referred to in sub-paragraph (a),

and any other conditions for giving the direction are met.

(2) In sub-paragraph (1), “relevant medical practitioner” means a medical practitioner referred to in paragraph (a) or (b) (as the case may be) of section 175(4).