Part 4: Police Powers Chapter 4: Powers under the Mental Health Act 1983 Section 81: Restrictions on places that may be used as places of safety
Section 135(6) of the 1983 Act defines "place of safety" for the purposes of both sections 135 and 136. Subsections (2) and (3) amend section 135(6) and insert new subsection (7) respectively. The requirement for the occupier to be "willing to temporarily receive the patient" is removed, thus removing ambiguity around the use of places for which it may be difficult to identify a sole or main occupier (such as community centres or other multiple use buildings). Subsection (3) enables a private dwelling to be used as a place of safety, where the person believed to be suffering from a mental disorder and an occupier of the property consent to its use. Subsections (4) and (5) amend sections 135 and 136 respectively to make each of those sections subject to a new section 136A of the 1983 Act, inserted by subsection (6).
	New section 136A prevents the use of police cells as a place of safety in any circumstances where the detainee is under 18 years of age. It also confers on the Secretary of State the power to make regulations (subject to the negative procedure) to restrict the circumstances in which police cells may be used as a place of safety for adults (aged 18 years or over) and to make provision for the treatment of such adults whilst so detained, including provision for the review of their detention. Such regulations are likely to include a set of considerations that police officers and health professionals must take into account when making decisions, in order to help regularise decisions on whether a person should be most safely managed in a police station or somewhere else, and make provision for the procedural steps required.