Prescribed treatment is a particular category of treatment in the Guardianship and Administration Act 1993 and the Mental Health Act 1993. These Acts provide a range of legal protections for persons with a mental incapacity or mental illness in South Australia, and include provisions relating to consent issues. Prescribed treatment includes certain treatments or procedures that have been singled out by the Parliament of South Australia as requiring special consideration in respect of who can provide substitute consent where a person has a mental incapacity or mental illness and is unable to provide their own effective consent.
Prescribed treatment is treated differently to other medical and dental treatment.
Consent to medical and dental treatment for persons with reduced mental capacity, for more information. There are two types of prescribed treatment - prescribed medical treatment under the Guardianship and Administration Act 1993 and prescribed psychiatric treatment under the Mental Health Act 1993. As of June 1997, sterilisation and termination of pregnancy are the prescribed medical treatments under the Guardianship and Administration Act 1993. Under the Mental Health Act 1993, there are two categories of prescribed psychiatric treatment - Category 1 and Category 2. As of June 1997, Category A treatment is psychosurgery and Category 2 treatment is electro-convulsive therapy.