---
name: mental-health-act-assessment
description: Use when asked to administer or explain a Mental Health Act Assessment — the UK Mental Health Act 1983/2007 statutory detention assessment by an AMHP and two doctors — grounded in FormExamples/form-examples; a legal completeness check, not a numeric score, distinct from mental-health-assessment.
---

# Mental Health Act Assessment

A formal assessment under the UK Mental Health Act 1983 (as amended by
the Mental Health Act 2007) to determine whether a person with a mental
disorder should be detained in hospital for assessment or treatment,
admitted informally, or supported in the community. It records the
coordinated assessment by an Approved Mental Health Professional
(AMHP) together with the required medical recommendations from two
registered medical practitioners (at least one Section 12 approved),
documents the statutory criteria that must be satisfied, captures the
nearest relative/consultee position, and records the recommended
section and outcome.

This is a legal and clinical documentation instrument, not a numeric
severity score. Detention deprives a person of liberty, so the Act, its
Code of Practice, and the Human Rights Act 1998 require every statutory
criterion and every required signatory to be explicitly documented
before an application can be made. The engine validates **legal
completeness** and classifies the recommended section and its urgency,
flagging gaps (a missing second medical recommendation, an absent
Section 12 doctor, a criterion not met, or a least-restrictive/
human-rights concern) rather than producing a score.

## What it covers

Assessment context; person identification; assessing professionals
(AMHP and two doctors, with Section 12 approval status); mental
disorder presence and nature; risk to self and others; the
least-restrictive alternative considered; appropriate treatment
availability (for Section 3); nearest relative/consultee consultation;
the recommended section and outcome; and a summary with completeness
validation and a signatory checklist.

## Common pitfalls

- **Missing a required signatory** — an application with a missing
  second medical recommendation, or without a Section 12 approved
  doctor where required, is not legally valid regardless of clinical
  urgency; completeness has to be verified explicitly, not assumed.
- **Skipping the least-restrictive-alternative documentation** — the
  Act and its Code of Practice require alternatives to detention to be
  considered and documented, not just detention itself justified.
- **Confusing this with a general mental-health severity assessment** —
  see [[mental-health-assessment]]; this instrument is a legal/
  procedural completeness check tied to detention criteria, not a
  symptom-severity score like PHQ-9/GAD-7.

## Learn more

- [FormExamples: mental-health-act-assessment](https://github.com/FormExamples/form-examples/tree/main/forms/mental-health-act-assessment) for the full implementation and legal references.
- [[mental-health-assessment]] for the general symptom-severity counterpart.
- [[psychiatry-assessment]] for the broader psychiatric evaluation this often accompanies.