Mental Healthcare Act 2017: what your hospital ERP must handle for psychiatry

The Mental Healthcare Act 2017 replaced the Mental Health Act 1987 and fundamentally changed how hospitals must handle psychiatric patients. It introduced advance directives, nominated representatives, and strict consent requirements that most hospital ERP systems do not support.

Advance directives (Section 5-11): a person can specify, in advance, how they want to be treated during a mental health crisis — including which treatments they refuse. The hospital must check for and honour an advance directive before treatment. Your ERP must have a field to record whether an advance directive exists and what it says.

Nominated representative (Section 14): a patient can nominate a representative to make decisions on their behalf during incapacity. The ERP must record the nominated representative's details and their authority.

Consent for admission and treatment: involuntary admission requires a specific process (Section 89-90) with review by the Mental Health Review Board. The ERP must distinguish voluntary from involuntary admission and record the legal basis.

Confidentiality: psychiatric records carry heightened confidentiality requirements. Role-based access must be tighter for psychiatry than for general medicine.

OneCity's psychiatry module captures advance directives, nominated representatives, admission type (voluntary/involuntary with legal basis) and enforces tighter access control on psychiatric records. These are not optional fields — they are part of the admission workflow because the Act makes them mandatory.