Tag: Mental Health Act

Partnership for Responsive Policy Analysis and Research (PREPARE)

Understanding clinical decision-making at the interface of the Mental Health Act (1983) and the Mental Capacity Act (2005)

Source: The King’s Fund Health Management and Policy Alert

The Mental Health Act (1983) (MHA) and the Mental Capacity Act (2005) (MCA) both provide a legal means by which people can be deprived of their liberty and admitted to hospital on a formal basis when they lack capacity to consent to their admission and treatment. A key interface of the MHA and the MCA arises where an individual lacks the capacity to decide whether to be admitted to hospital to receive care and treatment, and are not objecting to admission or treatment, then the decision of which Act to use for these purposes is that of professionals involved. This report looks at that decision-making process.

Care Quality Commission

Monitoring the Mental Health Act in 2018/19

The Mental Health Act 1983 is the legal framework that provides authority to detain and treat people who have a mental illness and need protection for their own health or safety, or for the safety of other people. The latest monitoring report finds there has been an improvement in the number of people being given information about their rights and being offered the support of an independent mental health advocate (IMHA). However, services need to do more to ensure that they are complying with their human rights duties.

Read the report here

Social Workers and a new Mental Health Act

All-Party Parliamentary Group on Social Work, July 2019

Report in response to the Independent Review of the Mental health Act 1983, that calls on the Government and NHS Trusts to recognise the social factors of mental health distress and promote the social model of health within new mental health legislation. It also looks at the integration of health and social care, and how social workers’ role can be enhanced in new legislation, in order to uphold the human rights of children and adults suffering ill mental health. The report setsout four principles that should underpin new legislation:

  •  Choice and autonomy – ensuring service users’ views and choices are respected
  • Least restriction – ensuring the Act’s powers are used in the least restrictive way
  • Therapeutic benefit – ensuring patients are supported to get better, so they can be discharged from the Act
  • People as individuals – ensuring patients are viewed and treated as rounded individuals

Click here to view the full report.

Modernising the Mental Health Act: Increasing choice, reducing compulsion: Final report of the Independent Review of the Mental Health Act 1983

Department of Health and Social Care, December 2018
The final report sets out recommendations covering 4 principles that the review believes should underpin the reformed Act:

  • choice and autonomy – ensuring service users’ views and choices are respected
  • least restriction – ensuring the Act’s powers are used in the least restrictive way
  • therapeutic benefit – ensuring patients are supported to get better, so they can be discharged from the Act
  • people as individuals – ensuring patients are viewed and treated as rounded individuals

The review looked at:

  • rising rates of detention under the Act
  • the disproportionate number of people from black and minority ethnic groups detained under the Act
  • processes that are out of step with a modern mental health care system

Click here to view the report.

Evaluation of the Advocacy in Wirral’s Independent Mental Health Act and Psychiatric Liaison Advocacy Services

Applied Health and Wellbeing Partnership, September 2018
Advocacy in Wirral (AiW) is a peer-led service which provides support, information and representation to people experiencing mental ill-health. AiW work across a range of areas, including community advocacy, welfare benefits, primary care advocacy, drug and alcohol advocacy, Independent Mental Capacity Act advocacy, and hospital advocacy. Hospital advocates provide advice and practical support regarding a range of issues, including welfare benefits, housing, employment, debts and legal issues. Hospital advocates can also attend ward rounds, accompany clients to meetings, and represent clients at local and regional meetings, helping to promote the needs of their client and bring about changes to the support and care of the client. Two elements of the AiW hospital advocacy service, Independent Mental Health Act (IMHA) advocacy and Psychiatric Liaison (PL) advocacy, have been evaluated to explore effectiveness and identity impacts and outcomes.
Click here to view the full report.