Frognal,
technically, that is correct. To section someone with the sort of paranoid schizophrenia or whatever psychosis is at work, would require both a clinical psychologist AND and psychiatrist.
My only problems with that are that the nutty medics at Uni all did psychiatry, and the nutty psychologists all wanted to go down the clinical route.
Point of order, but this is incorrect. In order to detain someone under the Mental Health Act outside of a hospital setting you require the assessments of a psychiatrist, another doctor (who may or may not be a psychiatrist, it's often a GP) and an Approved Mental Health Professional, who is a social worker 99.99% of the time but could theoretically be a nurse, although I've never seen one.
In a hospital a detention can be carried out by a doctor or an RMN nurse but not a psychologist (unless they are registered as an RMN as some have done this first).
Psychologists aren't used as they aren't qualified to carry out the detention, even the clinical ones.
Back to the thread!