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Mental Health (Care and Treatment) (Scotland) Act 2003

Section 286: safety and security in hospitals

567.Section 286(1) empowers the Scottish Ministers to make regulations authorising and placing conditions on various activities relating to safety and security in hospitals, including:

  • searches;

  • the taking and examination of body samples;

  • restrictions on property which may be kept in hospital;

  • restrictions on visitors and the property they bring into hospital;

  • surveillance; and

  • the searching of visitors and their property.

568.Implementation of those regulations in any particular hospital will be a matter for the managers of that hospital. Subsection (2) empowers the Scottish Ministers to make regulations requiring the provision by hospital managers of specified information to Ministers and to the Commission, in relation to their implementation of those regulations. Subsection (3), provides that regulations may also empower the Commission to make directions on certain matters.

569.The Scottish Ministers can also issue directions to hospital managers with which those hospital managers must comply (subsection (5)).

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Text created by the Scottish Government to explain what the Act sets out to achieve and to make the Act accessible to readers who are not legally qualified. Explanatory Notes were introduced in 1999 and accompany all Acts of the Scottish Parliament except those which result from Budget Bills.

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