Health Minister Slams Lords Over Mental Health Bill Amendments

Health Minister Rosie Winterton today expressed her deep concern about the impact on patient and public protection that the amendments the House of Lords has made to the Government’s Mental Health Bill.

{mosimage}Rosie Winterton told the Local Government Association conference on the Mental Health Bill in London : “Every year, over 1,300 people in contact with mental health services take their own lives. Every year, mental health patients commit around 50 homicides. Often, these are preceded by a reluctance to continue taking the treatment that would keep them well.

“We believe the present law can deny treatment to those who are in urgent need of it. We want to modernise the law to remove these obstacles both for community-based and hospital treatment for the good of patients themselves and to better protect the public.

“But the Peers have seriously weakened our plans for better protection for patients and the public. I want to spell out the impact of the changes that the peers have made and the very real risks if they are not reversed.”

The Lords have amended the Bill to:

• introduce a new treatability test that means patients with severe personality disorders will continue to be turned away from services because they are deemed ‘untreatable’;

• place restrictions on supervised community treatment so that far fewer people will benefit from living in the community. This means that patients will have to stay in hospital longer or be discharged without proper supervision, leaving patients untreated and families in distress; and

• introduce an ‘impaired judgement’ test so that if it cannot be shown that a patient’s judgement is impaired, they cannot be detained – regardless of how much the patient needs treatment and however much they, and others, are at risk without it.

Rosie Winterton continued: “We have made decisions which we believe strike the right balance between getting treatment to those who need it, putting in place patient safeguards and minimising the risk to the public.

“By choosing to ignore the strict conditions for detention already in place, downplaying the importance of the judgment of doctors and the implications of denying treatment for patients, the Lords have altered the entire balance of the Bill.

“These are people with profound mental health needs, who, at times, will pose a serious risk. For the sake of mental health patients themselves, their families and the safety of the public, these changes must be overturned.”