Learning Disability and the Mental Health Act

Abstract

People with learning disabilities display higher rates of psychiatric and behavioural disorders than the general population (Corbett, 1979). Quite often the Mental Health Act (1983) for England and Wales is used to detain and treat learning disabled patients who are unmanageable in the larger community (See Box 1). The application of the Act for people with learning disability and mental health problems has been studied and James (1993) highlighted some of its limitations. Studying clinical practice in the South East Thames region, Kon and Bouras (1996) found that ‘sectioned’ patients were mainly young males with violent behaviour. It was suggested that, more often than not, the majority of people with ‘challenging behaviour’ do not have a serious mental illness and that the majority were ‘sectioned’ under the legal category of mental impairment. The issue of whether serious illnesses are present in learning disabled people presenting with aggressive behaviour has considerable implications for their treatment and rehabilitation.