Mental Health (Compulsory Assessment and Treatment) Act 1992

30 Inpatient orders

• (1) Every inpatient order shall require the continued detention of the patient in the hospital specified in the order, or (where the patient is being detained at some other hospital) the admission of the patient and his or her detention in the hospital so specified, for the purposes of treatment, and shall require the patient to accept that treatment.

  (2) If, at any time during the currency of the inpatient order, the responsible clinician considers that the patient can continue to be treated adequately as an outpatient, that clinician shall, by notice in writing,—

  • (a) direct that the patient be discharged from the hospital; and

  • (b) direct the patient to attend at the patient's place of residence, or at some other place nominated in the notice, for the purposes of treatment;—

  and, in such a case, the inpatient order shall thereafter be deemed to be and to have effect as a community treatment order as if the terms of the notice were the terms of the order.