If you have the choice, always go in informally. Being sectioned is horrible, you cannot leave the ward unless a doctor says so and signs a section 17 form. On a section 2 you are assessed for up to 28 days on a ward, and on a section 3 you can be treated against your will for up to six months. A section 2 can be lifted, allowed to expire or transferred to a section 3. A section 3 can be renewed for a further 6 months when it is due to expire, and after that when it is renewed it lasts for 1 year at a time.
Once you are sectioned, usually it is not lifted unless you've had a managers hearing or a tribunal. Sometimes the psychiatrist may lift it early, but from personal experience my psychiatrist wanted to renew it and I wanted to go home so I had two managers hearings and a tribunal. They are not nice things to go through. It feels like you are in court, and everyone says infront of you how ill you are and why you need to be in hospital.
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