Adult Social Care Glossary, v 0.6

(1) In this Part of this Act "relative" means any of the following persons:

(a) husband or wife or civil partner;
(b) son or daughter
(c) father or mother
(d) brother or sister
(e) grandparent
(f) grandchild
(g) uncle or aunt
(h) nephew or niece.

(3) In this Part of this Act, subject to the provisions of this section and to the following provisions of this Part of this Act, the "nearest relative" means the person first described in subsection (1) above who is for the time being surviving, relatives of the whole blood being preferred to relatives of the same description of the half-blood and the elder or eldest of two or more relatives described in any paragraph of that subsection being preferred to the other or others of those relatives, regardless of sex.

The Nearest Relative currently has a number of important rights and functions under the MHA, including:

a. The right to require an assessment to be made with a view to admitting the patient to hospital (section 13(4)).
b. The right to apply for compulsory admission or guardianship (sections 2,3,4 and 7).
c. The right to be consulted or informed before an AMHP makes an application for detention under section 3 or guardianship (section 11(3)-(4)).
d. The right to object to section 3 admission or guardianship (section 11(4)).
e. The right to order discharge of the patient (sections 23 and 25).
f. The right to information given to the detained patient or patient subject to supervised community treatment (section 132(4)).
g. The right to apply to the MHT (sections 66 and 68(1).

[The draft Mental Health Bill 2022 proposes to replace the role of Nearest Relative (NR) with a role of Nominated Person (NP). This is defined differently from the current definition of Nominated Person as it applies to direct payments. The following is an extract from the Bill's explanatory notes.]

Clauses 21, 22 and 23 of the draft Mental Health Bill introduce a new statutory role to the Mental Health Act (MHA) – the nominated person (NP) – to replace the nearest relative (NR). The MHA provides for the role of the NR. It sets out a hierarchical list of ‘relatives’ and includes a number of rules for identifying the NR from this list. The Independent Review highlighted that service users and stakeholders consistently found the current model of family and carer involvement outdated and insufficient. This was found to be particularly true of the current NR provisions.

122. The general intention of this reform is that, in place of the NR, a patient would be able to personally select the NP to represent them and exercise the relevant statutory functions which the draft Bill extends. This supports the policy objective of improving support for detained patients and is linked to the wider policy intention to ensure that the views, experiences and expertise of patients are taken into account more fully and more seriously in their care and treatment, by allowing an individual to express their wishes through someone they know and trust. In doing so, these measures support the principle of choice and autonomy.

A term that is used in the Mental Health Act 1983 to refer to a single member of your family who is given certain rights and responsibilities if you are kept in hospital (also known as being 'sectioned'). It is not the same as 'next of kin' and may not necessarily be the person you have given power of attorney to (if this is relevant to you). The law decides who your nearest relative is, and although you cannot choose who this is, it can sometimes be changed.