Mental Health Act 1959

32 Rectification of application and recommendations

(1) If within the period of fourteen days beginning with the day on which a patient has been admitted to a hospital in pursuance of an application for admission for observation or for treatment the application, or any medical recommendation given for the purposes of the application, is found to be in any respect incorrect or defective, the application or recommendation may, within that period and with the consent of the managers of the hospital, be amended by the person by whom it was signed ; and upon such amendment being made the application or recommendation shall have effect and shall be deemed to have had effect as if it had been originally made as so amended.

(2) Without prejudice to the provisions of the foregoing subsection, if within the period therein mentioned it appears to the managers of the hospital that one of the two medical recommendations on which an application for the admission of a patient is founded is insufficient to warrant the detention of the patient in pursuance of the application, they may, within that period, give notice in writing to that effect to the applicant; and where any such notice is given in respect of a medical recommendation, that recommendation shall be disregarded, but the application shall be, and shall be deemed always to have been, sufficient if—

(a) a fresh medical recommendation complying with the relevant provisions of this Part of this Act (other than the provisions relating to the time of signature and the interval between examinations) is furnished to the managers within that period ; and

(b) that recommendation, and the other recommendation on which the application is founded, together comply with those provisions.

(3) Where the medical recommendations upon which an application for admission is founded are, taken together, insufficient to warrant the detention of the patient in pursuance of the application, a notice under subsection (2) of this section may be given in respect of either of those recommendations; but this subsection shall not apply in a case where the application is of no effect by virtue of subsection (4) of section twenty-six of this Act.

(4) Nothing in this section shall be construed as authorising the giving of notice in respect of an application made as an emergency application under section twenty-nine of this Act, or the detention of a patient admitted in pursuance of such an application, after the period of seventy-two hours referred to in subsection (3) of that section, unless the conditions set out in paragraphs (a) and (b) of that subsection are complied with or would be complied with apart from any error or defect to which this section applies.