Doc Brief

Protecting the detained patient

One  common misconception, now being rapidly dispelled, is that a hospital is always a safe place to inhabit. Mental disorder poses particular risks; some 150–200 in-patients are believed to kill themselves each year while being in hospital. Human rights legislation has added a new dimension to considerations of a hospital’s duty of care to protect patients. The matter came up for discussion in Savage v South Essex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust and Another [2007] EWCA Civ 1375, [2007] All ER (D) 316 (Dec).

Mrs Savage had suffered from a mental illness which led to her being compulsorily detained under s 3 of the Mental Health Act 1983 (MHA 1983). It transpired she had had a long history of mental illness and had made numerous attempts to leave hospital. One day she absconded from the hospital holding her, walked to a railway station and jumped in front of a train and was killed. Her daughter