Expert Witness Journal Dec 24 - Journal - Page 57
creased access to second opinion doctors will help ensure care is appropriate, compassionate and effective.
Discharge processes will also be reviewed more
broadly and will include a safety management plan for
the patient, to keep themselves and other safe.
that more attention is given to patient preferences will
improve compliance with essential treatment, reduce
coercion, while still protecting the public where
necessary.
Reforms in the Mental Health Bill aim to improve
patient experiences, choice and autonomy as well as
tackling racial discrimination and better supporting
those with learning disabilities.
Claire Murdoch, NHS National Mental Health Director, said: “This new Mental Health Act is a once in a
generation opportunity to ensure that patients experiencing serious mental illness and crises receive safe,
modern, evidence-based care, and that the needs and
wishes of patients and their loved ones are central to
care and better mental health outcomes.
This includes:
l increasing the frequency of clinical reviews, to
better ensure that the treatment patients receive is
appropriate
This comes alongside the NHS’s work to transform
mental health services - either through intervening
earlier with hundreds of NHS teams working in
schools, or trialling new 24/7 crisis mental health hubs
to prevent people needing hospital care in the first
place, and if an admission to hospital is needed the
health service is working with local services to ensure
this is delivered in a safe and therapeutic environment
close to people’s homes.”
l updating the use of community treatment orders,
so that they are only used when appropriate and
proportionate
l limiting the length of time that people with a
learning disability and/or autistic people can be detained under the act, if they do not have a co-occurring mental disorder that needs hospital treatment
and have not committed a criminal offence
l ending the use of police and prison cells for
detaining someone experiencing a mental health crisis instead of getting them access to a facility where
they can get the proper support, such as a hospital
Lord Timpson, Minister for Prisons and Probation,
said: “This bill will rightly end the use of prison cells
for people who need care under the Mental Health
Act and ensure they get the urgent specialist help they
need.
l speeding up transfers from prison to hospital by
limiting the time it can take to transfer prisoners
who need treatment in a mental health hospital to a
maximum of 28 days
It will also mean prisoners requiring mental health
hospital treatment are transferred quicker, and builds
on our ongoing work to ensure prisons make better
citizens and not better criminals.”
The action follows the introduction of one of the
world’s first all-hours mental health crisis support service in August through NHS 111. The government
also announced that £26 million will be invested to
open new mental health crisis centres as part of last
week’s budget, with extra funding also secured to provide talking therapies to an extra 380,000 patients.
While there have been decreases in the number of
detentions from 2021 to 2022 and 2022 to 2023, latest data from NHS England shows an increase in 2023
to 2024 with 22,000 people subject to the act as of
September.
An independent review of the Mental Health Act,
chaired by Professor Sir Simon Wessely, President of
the Royal Society of Medicine, and commissioned by
former Prime Minister Theresa May in 2017, found
rising rates of detention under the act, racial disparities, and poor patient experience especially for autistic people and those with a learning disability.
For people who need support at A&E, every emergency department in England now also has a liaison
psychiatric team available to offer specialist care.
A full list of mental health support options is available
on the NHS website. The service is also suitable for
deaf people, with tailored services available via the
NHS 111 website.
For those with a learning disability or autistic people,
the act will be amended to place a limit of 28 days for
which they can be detained unless they have a cooccurring mental health condition.
Professor Sir Simon Wessely, Chair of the
Independent Review of the Mental Health Act, said:
“I am delighted that at long last a new Mental Health
Act bill is to go before Parliament. No one doubts that
it is time to modernise our legislation, in order to
achieve the goal of reducing coercion and increasing
choice for those who suffer from the most severe
mental illnesses.
Commenting on the announcement, Mark Rowland,
Chief Executive at the Mental Health Foundation,
said: “These long overdue updates to the Mental
Health Act cannot come soon enough. People need
support that reflects our modern understanding of
how to help and care for people during a mental
health crisis - not our understanding 4 decades ago.
The original version of the act has driven racial disparities, stripped those who are sectioned of their humanity in a wholly unnecessary way, and all too often
made crises worse.
Our reforms will achieve that by ensuring better
treatment and discharge planning with more family
involvement, replacing outdated Victorian rules, and
by reforming community treatment orders to tackle
unacceptable ethnic differences. Most of all, ensuring
We particularly welcome reforms to give greater say to
patients, such as granting people with severe mental
health problems more control over who makes decisions for them during a crisis, banning the use of police cells as ‘places of safety’ for people experiencing a
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DECEMBER 2024
