The following five bodies can discharge a patient, depending on which section the patient is detained under. Some of the most common sections are included in the table below. In addition, there are some court-imposed sections from which only the court can discharge.

	Unrestricted (s2, s3, s37, s47)	Restricted (s37/41, s47/49, s45A)
Tribunal	Absolute discharge, or deferred to future date	Absolute discharge, conditional discharge, or deferred conditional discharge
HMH	Discharge	MoJ permission required (unheard of?)
RC	Discharge	MoJ permission required (does happen)
NR	s2 and 3: can discharge patient unless RC certifies patient likely to act dangerously to self or others. s37, s47: can only apply to Tribunal	Irrelevant - restricted patients do not have nearest relatives
MoJ	Irrelevant	Absolute or conditional discharge