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EXPLANATORY NOTE
These Regulations set out a number of matters in connection with the giving by local social services authorities in England of approvals to persons to act as approved mental health professionals (“AMHPs”) for the purposes of the Mental Health Act 1983 (c.20).
Before a person can be approved (or re-approved) in England to act as an AMHP by a local social services authority, the person must have appropriate competence. In deciding whether it is satisfied that the person has appropriate competence to act as an AMHP, the local social services authority must take into account that the person has at least one of the professional requirements set out in Schedule 1 and the matters set out in Schedule 2 (regulation 3).
Before a person can be approved to act as an AMHP if he has not been approved before, that person must have completed a course within the last five years that was approved by the General Social Care Council or the Care Council for Wales. The period for which an AMHP is approved (or re-approved) is five years (regulation 4).
Approval (or re-approval) is subject to specified conditions (regulation 5).
The approval shall be suspended for any period that the AMHP is suspended from the register or list relevant to the AMHP’s professional requirements (regulation 6).
The approval or re-approval of an AMHP will end when the period of approval expires or before that in specified circumstances. When the approval ends, the local social services authority must inform the AMHP and any other local social services authority for which it knows that AMHP has agreed to act. If one local social services authority approves a person to act as an AMHP who is already approved by another, it must inform that other local social services authority (regulation 7).
Each local social services authority is required to keep records with specified details of AMHPs for whom it is the approving local social services authority (regulation 8).
The Welsh Ministers are making separate regulations relating to the approval of persons to act as AMHPs in relation to Wales.
An impact assessment on the changes in these regulations was carried out in the Mental Health Bill: Regulatory Impact Assessment revised June 2007. This can be found at http://www.dh.gov.uk/en/publicationsandstatistics/Legislation/Regulatoryimpactassessment/DH_076477.
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