Serving the Mental Health Review Tribunal 1966–98

Abstract

In a lecture to the Royal College of Psychiatrists, published as an editorial in the British Journal of Psychiatry, Sir John Wood recommended a review of the structure and details of the Mental Health Review Tribunal (MHRT) system (Wood, 1995). The present article is a personal contribution to that review and describes aspects of the MHRT during 30 years of continual change.The roles of doctors in relation to the MHRT have been reviewed in the Psychiatric Bulletin by Woolf (1991). Despite flurries of lively correspondence during 1994–95, there has been no discussion of the working conditions of medical members.