What Form G is for
Section 24 of The Mental Health Services Act allows a person to be apprehended, conveyed, admitted to a mental health centre and detained on medical certificates. Each certificate states that, on your examination and the facts communicated to you, you have reasonable grounds to believe three things. The person has a mental disorder needing treatment or care and supervision that only a mental health centre can provide. Because of the disorder, they can’t fully understand and make an informed decision about that need. And because of the disorder, they’re likely to harm themselves or others, or to suffer substantial mental or physical deterioration, if not detained.
Form G differs from Form A, which only gets a refusing person to a psychiatric examination. A person detained on Form G who then wants to stay voluntarily can have the certificates revoked by the attending physician.
Who completes it
A physician with admitting privileges to a mental health centre, or a resident in psychiatry supervised by a psychiatrist with those privileges, completes each certificate after examining the person separately from any other practitioner. One subscribing witness signs each one. There’s no patient part.
How to fill in the certificate
Your details and the examination
Give your full name and qualifications, the mental health centre where you hold admitting privileges, the date and place of the examination, and the person’s full name and residence. The Act requires the examination to be within the 72 hours before you issue the certificate, so check the date before you sign.
The three criteria
The form prints all three criteria and certifies them together. If one isn’t met, the certificate can’t be issued. Give evidence for each, including capacity, such as what the person said or did that shows they can’t understand their need for treatment.
The grounds
The Act requires you to state the facts on which you formed your opinion. Give observations from your own examination, such as mental state findings, behaviour and statements, and then the facts others gave you, naming the source. Tie the facts to each criterion: what shows the disorder, what shows the lack of capacity, and what shows the risk of harm or deterioration.
Signatures
Date and sign as the examining physician, with your witness signing below. The form goes to the mental health centre, the official representative and the officer in charge.
Common reasons a certificate fails
- Grounds that restate the criteria without the observed facts.
- No facts supporting the capacity criterion.
- An examination more than 72 hours before the certificate, or no examination date.
- Two certificates from a resident and their supervising psychiatrist, or from two residents.
- No witness signature.
- Admission more than seven days after the first of the two examinations.
Submitting and who pays
The certificates go to the mental health centre with the person, and copies go to the official representative and the officer in charge. Renewal for another 21 days needs two new certificates signed before the current period ends. The form carries no fee line. Bill your examination as you normally would.