3. Know how and when a CTO ends

A Community Treatment Order (CTO) lasts for 6 months. If your CTO isn’t renewed or cancelled by the end of the 6 months, it automatically ends.

At any time before the end of the 6 months you can ask your doctor to review your condition to see if you still need to follow your CTO. If the doctor doesn’t think you need the CTO, they must cancel it.

Cancel the CTO by refusing to follow the plan

At any time you can tell your doctor that you plan to stop following your treatment plan. If you do, your doctor must review your condition within 72 hours to decide if you still need the CTO. The doctor will examine you before making a decision.

You must allow your doctor to examine you. If you don’t, they can ask the police to bring you in for them to examine you. The police have 30 days to find you and bring you in.

Once the doctor has examined you and reviewed your condition, they can:

• cancel your CTO and let you go home without a CTO
• give you a new CTO with a different plan that you agree to follow
• cancel your CTO, sign a Form 1 and keep you in a psychiatric facility to get treated there

Renew a CTO

If you want to continue your CTO after 6 months, your doctor can renew it. If your CTO is renewed, your doctor will give you a signed document to confirm it was renewed.

Your doctor can renew your CTO either before it ends or within the first month after it ends.