Guardianship ceases on the date of admission and the patient is then in the same position as any other patient admitted under section 3. When a patient is transferred under section 10 or 19, the documents authorising guardianship or detention, including the authority for transfer, should be sent to the hospital or guardian to which the patient is transferred. The former hospital or guardian should retain copies of these documents. 94 Section 20 contains the provisions governing the duration of the authority for the detention for treatment, or guardianship, and its expiry and renewal. The initial authority for detention or guardianship lasts for 6 months, as does the first renewal.
Subsequent renewals are for one year.
This means that the responsible medical officer must review the need for continued detention or guardianship after four months and ten months and then every year. Subsequent applications may be made once in every 12 month period of detention. The patient can only be recalled to hospital from the community to undergo this examination if the patient's responsible medical officer is also satisfied that the patient needs a period of in-patient treatment at that hospital. If it appears to the responsible medical officer that the patient should continue to be detained the responsible medical officer should report that to the hospital managers using form 30 and this report should be kept with the admission documents. These conditions, which must be satisfied for the renewal of the authority to detain, are substantially the same as the conditions for admission for treatment, but in the case of a mentally ill or severely mentally impaired patient there is an alternative to one of the conditions.