Components of Forensic Psychiatric Services
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Psychiatric And Mental Health Services Operational Policy
• Arrange for appropriate referrals.
• Provide for psychiatric care for patients from other disciplines
when referral made refer to Appendix. •
Provide a discharge summary and plan. Discharge plan should include:
o Medications to be taken. o Type of follow up outpatient, Health centre, Community
psychiatry unit. o Date of follow up.
o Other interventions needed and their dates and location e.g. place and type for psychoeducation, family
intervention, job placement etc.
h Where possible, family members should be involved early in management for all patients who are admitted.
i Rehabilitation services that should be incorporated early as inpatient include patient and family education and illness management.
j For all patients admitted, the individual care plan should be initiated. k ECT shall be done only in psychiatric hospitals. It can be an outpatient or
inpatient procedure. The practice of ECT is regulated by MHA 2001 and this must be adhered to. The minimum requirement is to have three areas
for ECT including reception, treatment and recovery area.
l There must be adequate equipments in the ECT suite and this is deined in the above regulations. Please also refer to Appendix.
m Restraints and seclusion can only be done in psychiatric hospitals. n Restraints and seclusion must be seen as an emergency procedure
and the requirements of the regulations of MHA 2001 must be followed. Basically, at all times, the basic human rights of the patients detained
involuntarily must be respected.
o All psychiatric hospitals must set up a hospital based community psychiatric team. The main aims of this team would be three fold i.e. to
prevent readmissions, to facilitate early discharge and to help divert patients from being admitted.
p This team must be multidiscipline in nature. For further details on function and operations of this team, refer to hospital based community based
psychiatric services policies.