Mental Health Act 1959

147 Interpretation

(1) In this Act, unless the context otherwise requires, the following expressions have meanings hereby respectively assigned to them, that is to say:—

• " absent without leave " has the meaning assigned to it by section forty of this Act;

• " direction restricting discharge " has the meaning assigned to it by section seventy-four of this Act;

• " hospital " means—

  (a)

  any hospital vested in the Minister under the National Health Service Act, 1946;

  (b)

  any accommodation provided by a local authority and used for hospital and specialist services under Part II of that Act; and

  (c)

  any special hospital;

  and " hospital within the meaning of Part IV of this Act" has the meaning assigned to it by subsection (2) of section fifty-nine of this Act;

• " hospital order " and " guardianship order " have the meanings respectively assigned to them by section sixty of this Act;

• " local health authority " has the same meaning as in the National Health Service Act, 1946, and includes a joint board constituted under section nineteen of that Act;

• " the managers " has the meaning assigned to it by Part IV of this Act;

• " medical practitioner " means a registered medical practitioner within the meaning of the Medical Act, 1956;

• " medical treatment " includes nursing, and also includes care and training under medical supervision ;

• " mental nursing home " has the meaning assigned to it in Part III of this Act;

• " mental welfare officer " means an officer of a local health authority appointed to act as mental welfare officer for the purposes of this Act;

• " Minister " means the Minister of Health;

• " nearest relative ", in relation to a patient, has the meaning assigned to it in Part IV of this Act; ;

• " order restricting discharge " has the meaning assigned to it by section sixty-five of this Act;

• " patient " (except in Part VIII of this Act) means a person suffering or appearing to be suffering from mental disorder;

• " special hospital " has the meaning assigned to it in Part VII of this Act;

• " transfer direction " has the meaning assigned to it by section seventy-two of this Act.

(2) Any reference in this Act to any other enactment is a reference thereto as amended, and includes a reference thereto as extended or applied, by or under any other enactment, including this Act.

(3) Without prejudice to the last foregoing subsection, any reference in this Act to an enactment of the Parliament of Northern Ireland, or to an enactment which that Parliament has power to amend, shall be construed, in relation to Northern Ireland, as a reference to that enactment as amended by any Act of that Parliament, whether passed before or after this Act.

(4) In relation to a person who is liable to be detained or subject to guardianship by virtue of an order or direction under Part V of this Act, any reference in this Act to any enactment contained in Part IV of this Act shall be construed as a reference to that enactment as it applies to that person by virtue of the said Part V.

(5) For the purposes of this Act a person shall be deemed not to have attained the age of sixteen, twenty-one or twenty-five years, as the case may be, until the commencement of the sixteenth, twenty-first or twenty-fifth anniversary of the date of his birth.