NORWEGIAN PARLIAMENTARY OMBUDSMAN National Preventive Mechanism ANNUAL REPORT 2016 54 Due process protection in mental health care Finding and recommendation The Parliamentary Ombudsman has emphasised that patients should receive information about administrative decisions on use-of-force and the justification for the decision (the record entry). As a rule, the patient should not have to request access to their patient records in order to obtain information about the grounds for a decision to use force. All patients should be informed of the grounds for such decisions both verbally and in writing in order to ensure that their rights are safeguarded and to prevent arbitrary use of force. The Parliamentary Ombudsman has made recommendations in this respect to all mental health care institutions for adults visited to date. ›› Follow-up Sørlandet Hospital in Kristiansand has changed its procedure for providing information to patients about decisions to use force. The patients shall now receive the record entry, in which the grounds for the decision to use force are described, together with the decision itself. In autumn 2016, the Directorate of Health issued clarifications of the legislation to all supervisory commissions in Norway as a result of the Parliamentary Ombudsman’s visit reports in 2015 and 2016.³ The Directorate emphasised that all patients are entitled to information about administrative decisions pursuant to the Mental Health Care Act. If the grounds for use-of-force are stated in the record entry but not in the decision form itself, this record entry must be enclosed with the decision when informing the patient. ›› ›› Mixed-gender prisons Finding and recommendation When the NPM visited in May 2016, Drammen Prison was a mixed-gender prison with men and women serving sentences together in all sections of the prison. The NPM found, among other issues, that female inmates received unwelcome attention from male inmates. After the visit, the Parliamentary Ombudsman stated that international standards and findings made during the visit indicated that women and men should not serve together in the manner seen in Drammen Prison. ›› Follow-up With the adoption of the 2017 national budget, the Norwegian government decided that women shall no longer serve in Drammen Prison. Instead, Kongsvinger Prison’s Section G will now be used for foreign women who are to be deported after they have served their sentences.4 ›› 3 Letter from the Directorate of Health, 27 September 2016. 4 The NPM visited Kongsvinger Prison, including Section G, in August 2015. See the visit report from Kongsvinger Prison and the 2016 thematic report “Women in prison”, which describes a number of risks involved in transferring women to Section G of Kongsvinger Prison.