Approved Mental Health Professionals (AMHP) Service

Approved mental health professionals help anyone whose difficulties are such that seem to require an assessment or treatment in hospital for a period of time and cannot agree to this.

They arrange and conduct assessments for service users under the Mental Health Act and must adhere to the statutory roles and responsibilities that this dictates.

An assessment under the Mental Health Act usually requires two doctors and an AMHP. Placing someone under a Section requires three professionals. The AMHP’s role in the assessment is to bring the social perspective and apply the law.

Update 1 April 2019

From 1 April 2019, Kent County Council [KCC] will be managing the Kent Approved Mental Health Professional [AMHP] service by transferring to the direct management of KCC under the umbrella of the Partnership Transformation Programme.

This change of management will not result in any immediate changes to the model of service delivery, or the service delivered by the Kent AMHP service.

The referral routes in to the AMHP service will remain the same – a call should be made to the AMHP Service to discuss the referral as follows:

• To contact the AMHP service between 8am and 5pm, the existing telephone number should be used: 03000 422480
• To contact the AMHP service Out of Hours (5pm to 8am), a new telephone number has been introduced: 03000 419191

The Kent AMHP service will continue to operate on a 24-hour basis, 365 days a year. Outside of normal working hours they will continue to respond to urgent Mental Health Act assessments which would ordinarily come under the auspices of the Medway AMHP service.

AMHPs are only able to provide legal advice in relation to assessments under consideration and in relation to parts of the Mental Health Act covered within their AMHP training and competence framework.