Adults' rights in psychiatry (18+)

As a patient, you will be assigned a contact from the department/section to which you are connected. You will be issued with a contact card, with the name and telephone number of your contact.

Your contact will help provide continuity in your treatment and will help you get answers to all your questions.

You have the right to have a relative or another person with you as an observer at treatment consultations and the like.

However, healthcare professionals can decide to derogate from this right if any significant public or private interests carry greater weight than consideration for you as a patient. If your request is rejected, you will be given oral reasons for this, and you can also ask for reasons in writing.

For example, if your request is rejected for an observer at a treatment consultation, you can contact the National Social Appeals Board (Ankestyrelsen), which supervises Central Denmark Region’s compliance with the existing legislation. The National Social Appeals Board is not a complaints board, and it decides itself whether to hear a given case.

At the Patient Office, you can obtain guidance and advice about your rights as a patient. The Patient Office can also help you file a complaint if there are matters with which you are dissatisfied.

The Patient Office is independent of the Region in the specific guidance it gives you as a patient. The Patient Office staff have a duty of confidentiality and will not contact hospital departments etc. without your consent.

If, during your hospitalisation, you are subjected to force, a patient adviser must be assigned to you. Examples of forced intervention are compulsory admission, deprivation of freedom or forced treatment.

The patient adviser must visit you as soon as possible and no later than 24 hours after force was used, followed by visits at least once a week.

The patient adviser will guide you on everything connected with admission, stay and treatment. The adviser can also help you file a complaint if you need to.

An interpreter can be used if necessary in order for you to understand the information you are given in connection with your treatment.

The staff assess whether an interpreter is necessary and ensure that an interpreter is booked.

In some cases, a fee will be charged for interpreter assistance. 

Read more on interpretation assistance on sundhed.rm.dk.

The psychiatric services in Central Denmark Region give high priority to cooperation with your relatives on your treatment. It is up to you whether your relatives may be involved in your course of treatment, and you must give your consent to this.

However, the staff can, without your consent, inform your relatives about general matters relating to mental illness and treatment, and can also inform them about where they can obtain help and support.

You have a right of access to documents in your medical records. This means that you have the right to see the medical records and obtain a copy of them if needed. You can request access to documents from the healthcare professional or hospital authority that is in possession of your medical records. Your request to access documents must be fully processed within seven working days following receipt. If your request is rejected in full or in part, you are entitled to be informed about the reasons for this and be given guidance on how to complain.

For record entries before 1 January 2010, the right of access to documents may be limited if important considerations relating to yourself or others make this necessary.

Medical records include information about:

• Diagnosis
• Course of the illness
• Results of examinations
• Correspondence with your GP, public authorities and possibly also with next-of-kin

Using your digital signature/MitID, you can log in at sundhed.dk and find your Health Records (Sundhedsjournal). Your Health Records are a compilation of all medical records about you from all Danish public hospitals and GPs, together with information such as details of medication, laboratory test results etc.

The medical records may be difficult to understand, as they are a tool for healthcare professionals. If you so wish, the staff can help explain the contents to you.

At present, not all the information from your records is available to you in your Health Records.

If you are admitted, the staff must prepare a treatment plan within seven days. A provisional treatment plan is typically prepared within 24 hours. A provisional treatment plan is a plan with observational diagnoses or brief diagnostic considerations as well as examinations and treatment. A treatment plan must have been prepared within one week.

If possible, the staff will work with you concerning your treatment plan. You will be given a copy of the treatment plan, unless you do not want one.

If you receive outpatient treatment – i.e. without being hospitalised – the staff will ensure that a treatment plan is prepared at the latest in connection with your second consultation.

If possible, the staff will work with you concerning your treatment plan. You will be given a copy of the treatment plan, unless you do not want one.

Treatment plans are reassessed in the event of:

• Deviating examination results
• Significant change in your condition
• Changes in the overall treatment strategy
• Changes in your diagnosis
• Completed examination and diagnosis

As a patient, you decide yourself whether to commence an offered examination or treatment, unless otherwise follows from special provisions in the existing legislation.

A good course of treatment is based on mutual trust.

Before you give your consent, the person in charge of your treatment must provide you with in-depth information about your illness and treatment. You must also be given information concerning the consequences if you do not want the treatment to be commenced. Your consent must be given on the basis of the information you have received (informed consent).

Consent can be withdrawn at any time. 

As a patient, you are entitled to information about:

• What is wrong with you (diagnosis)
• The treatment options available
• The possible risks, complications and side effects connected with an examination or treatment
  • The information must be more comprehensive if the treatment involves an obvious risk of serious side effects and complications. Routine and harmless interventions do not require such extensive information
• The possible consequences if you do not wish to receive treatment
• The course of treatment and the treatment outcome

As a patient, you also have the right to ask for information about your state of health and treatment options. Also when and if there is a risk of complications and side effects.

However, there are exceptions to the requirement for you to give your informed consent:

• If you are in a life-threatening situation requiring immediate treatment and cannot give your informed consent (for example if you are unconscious), you will be treated without consent.
• For patients who permanently lack the ability to give informed consent, the next-of-kin or a guardian can give informed consent.
• Under certain special conditions, the Danish Psychiatric Care Act (Psykiatriloven) allows for treatment in a psychiatric ward to be commenced without your informed consent. The Act also allows other use of force. Forced intervention is an intervention without your consent. However, force can only be used once everything possible has been done to obtain your consent and always based on a principle of the least necessary means. This means that the staff will only use the force that is absolutely necessary for your treatment. Forced intervention may, for example, be compulsory admission, enforced treatment or fixation.

Strict conditions apply to the use of force, and patients who are subjected to force have special rights, for example quick access to complain and assignment of a patient adviser who will guide and assist the patient, including in connection with any complaints. See the previous ‘Patient adviser’ section on this page.

The staff are subject to a duty of confidentiality. As a general rule, they must not pass on information about your health or other personal details without your consent. The duty of confidentiality also applies in relation to relatives. However, as a general rule, your parents must be informed about your situation.

In connection with your treatment, healthcare professionals may obtain electronic information about you if necessary as part of the current treatment and disclose information to other healthcare professionals who are to continue the treatment. If you are in a course of treatment and need to be treated by several persons or at different places of treatment, the healthcare staff will disclose the relevant information. 

As a patient, you may, however, request to a great extent that staff refrain from obtaining and/or disclosing information about you.

Read more about duty of confidentiality and disclosure and obtainment of information on sundhed.dk

You can complain to the Danish Agency for Patient Complaints if you think that health information has been wrongfully disclosed or obtained.

Generally speaking, you must make your own way to and from the hospital. Lack of access to public transport does not automatically entitle you to transportation and/or a travel allowance.

In special cases, you may be able to get help with your travel costs or be transported using Central Denmark Region’s taxi scheme or by ambulance if your state of health makes this necessary.

You can read more about the transportation and travel allowance conditions here.

In special cases, the use of force against psychiatric patients is necessary for the sake of the patient himself/herself or other persons. Force may, for example, be deprivation of liberty and compulsory treatment.  

In some cases, you may be admitted against your own will.

Read more about compulsory admission (via sundhed.dk)

Force must not be used until every effort has been made to get you to participate voluntarily.

Force must be exercised as gently as possible, with the greatest possible regard for you as a patient, so that you do not experience unnecessary humiliation or inconvenience.

If you are subjected to force, you will be assigned a patient adviser who will look after your interests. The patient adviser advises and assists you with any complaints to the Patient Complaints Board and the courts.

The rules on the use of force in psychiatry are laid down in the Danish Psychiatric Care Act.

As a patient, you are basically free to choose from any of the public hospitals throughout Denmark. However, a hospital department may refuse patients if that department has significantly longer waiting times than other similar departments.

What to do

If you would like to attend another public hospital, you can contact the department to which you have been referred. They will then make sure to send your referral to the hospital you have chosen.

Read more

At mitsygehusvalg.dk, you can see the waiting times in public hospitals and you can contact the Patient Office, if you need help.

Read more about the right to choose another public hospital.

Waiting times for treatment can be found on the Danish Health Authority’s website www.venteinfo.dk

If you have to wait for more than 30 days for psychiatric examination and treatment, you are entitled to extended free choice of hospital. This means that you can choose to be examined or treated at the private hospitals with which the regions have an agreement. However, this only applies if the waiting time for the private treatment services is shorter than the waiting time in the psychiatric wards in Central Denmark Region.

Read more about free hospital choice on the Ministry of Health’s website.

Waiting times for treatment can be found on the Danish Health Authority’s website www.venteinfo.dk

As a patient, you are entitled to be examined for what is wrong with you (receive a diagnosis) within 30 days if medically possible.

If it is not possible to make a diagnosis for you within this deadline, you must be given an examination and diagnosis plan. The plan must include information on the time and place of the examinations the hospital expects will be needed to make a diagnosis for you.

If you cannot be examined and diagnosed in a hospital in your region of residence, you can choose to attend a private hospital (extended free choice of hospital).

If errors have been made in connection with your examination or care, or if you have been exposed to a tangible risk of injury, this constitutes an unintentional incident.

You can write about your experience using the www.dpsd.dk website. Here, you can enter your experience in a database of unintentional incidents. Your report will be sent to the department at the hospital where the incident occurred. The department will then investigate what they can do to prevent anything like that happening again. Please note that the department is under no obligation to reply to you.

If healthcare professionals, paramedics etc. are involved in an unintentional incident, they are obliged to report it. On the Danish Patient Safety Authority's website, you can read more about how reports of unintentional incidents are used to improve patient safety.

If there are matters that you are not satisfied with concerning your treatment, you can initially contact the staff or the department management. You can also contact the Hospital Management in Central Denmark Region Psychiatry.

Read more at our website about how to complain.

www.naevneneshus.dk
Here you can find information about the Psychiatric Patients' Complaints Board.

www.patienterstatningen.dk
The Patient Compensation Association's website has information on the public compensation scheme for patients.

www.retsinformation.dk
On the website, you can search in all acts and regulations (executive orders, circulars etc.) issued by the ministries and the central state authorities as well as documents from the Danish Parliament (Folketinget).

www.sst.dk
The Danish Health Authority's website, where you can find information about duty of confidentiality etc.

www.stps.dk
The Danish Patient Safety Authority's website.

www.stpk.dk
The Danish Agency for Patient Complaints' website contains information on patient complaints, compensation and unintentional incidents.

www.sum.dk
The Ministry of Health's website contains information on patients' rights etc.

www.sundhed.dk
sundhed.dk is the national health service's online system.

You can also find other relevant information via the various associations for users and relatives.