Mental Health Act assessments in 2022 and 2023
Case reference FOI2024/00103
Published 2 February 2024
Request
We are requesting the following information under the Freedom of Information Act:
• The number of MHA assessments arranged and attended by an AMHP in 2022 (we appreciate that some may be arranged, the AMHP (and doctors) may attend but the assessment cannot be completed for a variety of reasons)?
• The number of MHA assessments completed in 2022 (ideally broken down by outcome eg detention under s2, detention under s3, no detention- referral to CMHT etc)?
• The number of MHA assessments arranged and attended by an AMHP in 2023?
• The number of MHA assessments completed in 2023 (again, ideally broken down by outcome)?
• The number of assessments undertaken in 2023 on out of area individuals (ie those registered with GPs in other local authority/ICB areas but currently located within your boundaries)?
• The number of assessments undertaken in 2023 which were conducted out of area (ie those involving patients registered with a GP in your local authority/ICB area but currently located in another area)?
• Where you commission independent/self-employed AMHPs to undertake MHA assessments what is the standard fee (in 2023) you pay them?
• Do you make payment to the (independent/self-employed) AMHP where an assessment cannot be completed (but the AMHP attends the arranged location)? (if so, is this at the same rate?)
• Do you make payment for mileage incurred to undertake assessments? If so, what is the rate (in 2023)?
• Is this same mileage rate paid to substantive/rota AMHPS as well as independent/self-employed AMHPs?
Response
We are requesting the following information under the Freedom of Information Act:
• The number of MHA assessments arranged and attended by an AMHP in 2022 (we appreciate that some may be arranged, the AMHP (and doctors) may attend but the assessment cannot be completed for a variety of reasons)?
• The number of MHA assessments completed in 2022 (ideally broken down by outcome eg detention under s2, detention under s3, no detention- referral to CMHT etc)?
• The number of MHA assessments arranged and attended by an AMHP in 2023?
• The number of MHA assessments completed in 2023 (again, ideally broken down by outcome)?
• The number of assessments undertaken in 2023 on out of area individuals (ie those registered with GPs in other local authority/ICB areas but currently located within your boundaries)?
• The number of assessments undertaken in 2023 which were conducted out of area (ie those involving patients registered with a GP in your local authority/ICB area but currently located in another area)?
• Where you commission independent/self-employed AMHPs to undertake MHA assessments what is the standard fee (in 2023) you pay them?
• Do you make payment to the (independent/self-employed) AMHP where an assessment cannot be completed (but the AMHP attends the arranged location)? (if so, is this at the same rate?)
• Do you make payment for mileage incurred to undertake assessments? If so, what is the rate (in 2023)?
• Is this same mileage rate paid to substantive/rota AMHPS as well as independent/self-employed AMHPs?
This information is not held in a form that would enable it to be located, retrieved and extracted within the Appropriate Time Limit which equates to 18 hours as defined by the Freedom of Information and Data Protection (Appropriate Limits and Fees) Regulations 2004.
Our electronic reporting systems are unable to run a report for this information. To ascertain the data requested, officers would need to manually check individual files for this information. An initial search has shown that 500 files would need to be checked for this information, and it is estimated that it would take 20 minutes to check each file. Once the details had been identified this would need to be noted and once all files had been checked in this way, the total figures requested could be calculated.
This would at a conservative estimate take at least 166 hours to complete. Where the Limit is exceeded Public Authorities are not obliged to supply the information requested by virtue of S12 of the Act. Please take this letter as a refusal notice under S17 of the Act.
If you have any suggestions as to how your request can be reduced in scope to take it under the limit, please let us know.
Documents
This is Herefordshire Council's response to a freedom of information (FOI) or environmental information regulations (EIR) request.
You can browse our other responses or make a new FOI request.