Office of the Leader of the House of Commons

Mental Health Bill

Key Benefits Introduces a new legal framework for the treatment of people with mental disorders without their consent, when this is necessary to protect them or others from harm: sets out the conditions which have to be met for someone to be treated without their consent sets out procedures for the use of compulsion (compulsion will be permissible in the community as well as in hospital, although there will be no forcible treatment in the community) contains safeguards, including a Tribunal, for the authorisation of compulsion to protect patients provides for the management and treatment of mentally disordered patients concerned in criminal proceedings provides special safeguards for certain types of treatment, such as psychosurgery or electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) provides for patient representation through nominated persons and mental health advocates provides for rights of appeal against the Mental Health Tribunal provides for the Commission for Healthcare Audit and Inspection to have

Territorial Extent
United Kingdom

Comments

If you have any comments on the proposals you can email them to:

Ian.Bishop@dh.gsi.gov.uk

Additional Information

The Mental Health Bill is a fundamental part of the government's strategy to improve outcomes for people with mental health problems and make services more focused on the needs of the individual. This strategy involves:

substantially increasing mental health service resources.
developing new and innovative community-based services.
improving mental health law.
The current legislation is the Mental Health Act 1983. Following the report of an expert committee (1999), Green and White Papers, the publication of a draft Bill for consultation in June 2002, and pre-legislative scrutiny between September 2004 and March 2005, a Bill is to be introduced this session.





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