It is now a requirement of the new Code of Practice to the Mental Health Act that police officers should, where possible, ring a mental health professional before initiating their use of section 136 of the Act.  Whilst that process is going on, there is a very interesting legal situation in play! – Is the […]

You may well be familiar with the NHS ‘Choose Well’ campaign, or versions of it? – the presenting of a series of different characters with various medical conditions and using them to highlight which part of the NHS should have been accessed, like the poster, above? Self-care Pharmacist 111 of NHS Direct type phone line. […]

The issue of searching people after they are detained is always sensitive, for it represent an intrusion into someone’s privacy.  It is explicitly recognised in legal challenges to searching that the act constitutes an engagement of Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights.  The sensitivities involved and some of the legal considerations are […]