Book Review: Manual Handling in Health and Social Care: An A‐Z of Law and Practice
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/13619322200200028 |
| Date | 01 September 2002 |
| Published date | 01 September 2002 |
| Pages | 31-32 |
| Author | David Hewitt |
| Subject Matter | Health & social care |
The Mental Health Review Volume 7 Issue 3 September 2002 ©Pavilion Publishing (Brighton) 2002 31
ichael Mandelstam’s new book may
be of little direct relevance to current psychiatric
practice, but it may highlight shortcomings in current
mental health understanding.
Although the format of the book is one that
Mandelstam has used before,1 it remains somewhat
uncommon. As the title suggests, the kernel of his
work is an alphabetical list of manual handling cases,
concepts and legislation. This approach can seem
irritatingly disjunctive, and it certainly impedes the
flow of the book: thus, Hopkinson v Kent County Council
follows an entry on ‘Home and Family Life’, and in
turn precedes those on ‘Housing (Scotland) Act 1987’,
‘Housing Grants, Construction and Regeneration Act
1996’ and ‘Human Rights’. The 40-page Overview
with which the main part of the book begins is both
accurate and clear, but there are times when it seems
to be derived from – and therefore to be circumscribed
by – the A-Z list.
Some of the legal cases that Mandelstam discusses
do not relate specifically to manual handling issues,
and are included simply to enable him to make a
broader point – about the ever-increasing duty of care
owed by local authorities,2for example, or the way the
courts interpret European directives.3This means that
some parts of the book would have a wider appeal
than the title might suggest. Unfortunately, the lack of
a comprehensive index will make those parts
extremely difficult to find.
Mandelstam frequently invokes the Human Rights
Act 1998, and also the European Convention on
Human Rights, which it introduced – or, as
Mandelstam incorrectly suggests, ‘incorporated’ – into
domestic law. However, he is rarely able to engage
Mfully with this topic. That isn’t surprising, for, as many
have discovered since the HRA came into force in
October 2000 – and not, as Mandelstam at one point
suggests, 1998 – it is extremely difficult to derive
hard-and-fast practical standards from the ECHR,
whose wording is of necessity somewhat abstract. In
fact, any proper analysis of the effect of the HRA upon
English law would have to be based upon a number of
mental health cases, for after a quiet start, the courts
are beginning to subject the Mental Health Act 1983 to
more frequent and more rigorous analysis.
In fact, Mandelstam’s determination not to ignore
the HRA allows him to discuss one particularly
scandalous case that was brought against the UK.
Recently, the European Court of Human Rights held
that a severely disabled woman had been subjected to
inhuman or degrading treatment – and Article 3 of the
ECHR had therefore been breached – where she was
imprisoned for contempt of court having refused to
answer questions in civil proceedings for debt.4
There is, however, one respect in which this book
may be of some significance for those engaged in
psychiatric practice. The handling envisaged by
Mandelstam invariably takes place with the consent of
the handled. However, his lengthy discussion of such
things as the Manual Handling Operations
Regulations 1992 and the Management of Health and
Safety at Work Regulations 1999 only serves to
highlight the fact that there is a real need for
authoritative guidance on situations in which the
laying-on of hands does not enjoy quite the same level
of consent. Pre-eminent among those situations is the
management of challenging behaviour by psychiatric
in-patients. How might such behaviour be discouraged
and such patients pacified? Precisely when may the
necessary powers be implied from the Mental Health
Book Review
Manual Handling in Health and Social Care:
An A-Z of Law and Practice
By Michael Mandelstam
Jessica Kingsley Publishers (2002)
ISBN 1 84310 041 X
1 See
An A-Z of Community Care Law
, ISBN 1 85302 560 7.
2
Phelps v Hillingdon London Borough Council
[2000] 3 CCLR 156.
3
A v National Blood Authority
[2001] 3 All ER.
4
Price v United Kingdom
(2001) TLR, 13 August 2001.
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