In the upcoming election, Theresa May has recently released her manifesto stating her intent to replace the “flawed Mental Health Act” last revised in 2007. May states that instead, she plans on replacing it with a new Mental Health Treatment Bill.
The Mental Health Act 1983 (amended 2007), sets out a framework for the compulsory detention and treatment of people with mental health problems in England and Wales. The Mental Health Act is largely focused on the protection of health and safety for those with mental disorder, while also focusing on the protections and risk management of the public. The Mental Health Act provides a legal framework protecting the rights of those detained for treatment as well as their relatives.
Where it becomes necessary to treat a patient against their will in order to protect their health and safety or others, the Mental Health Act provides a legal framework to protect their rights and access to an independent tribunal. While there are flaws with the MHA it is questionable whether the whole Act should be replaced. Prime Minister, Theresa May proposes to do away with the MHA, replacing it with a new bill that would grant more power to the patients allowing them the option to decide whether or not they want to be held in hospital for treatment. However, this begs the question because so many mentally ill patients claim to be fine how many will actually seek treatment?
May believes that by dissolving the Mental Health Act it will leave room for a new treatment bill which will confront “the discrimination and unnecessary detention that takes place too often”. She is hoping to gain the support of mental health charities, doctors, and supports alike. May plans on bringing mental health care to every school in the country and ensuring that mental health is taken far more seriously in the workplace and to raise the standards of care. The new legislation would also include a code of practice aimed at reducing the disproportionate use of mental health detention for minority groups and countering “unconscious bias”. Safeguards would be introduced to end rules that mean those who are detained can be treated against their will, and those with the capacity to give or refuse consent would be able to do so.
The controversy following the release of Theresa May’s manifesto has shocked much of the mental health community. Chief executive of one of the more prominent mental health care charities, SANE, Marjorie Wallace has stated that “the Prime Minister’s vision for mental health was painting over some dangerous cracks and fault lines in psychiatric services”. While May reveals a plan to increasing mental health funding by nearly £11.4 billion this year; it was revealed just in April that they have actually cut mental health funding in five regions of England. This again draws the overwhelming picture that while May could indeed be promising to repeal and replace the Mental Health Act with a new Bill; she could in fact only accomplish to repeal the existing long standing Mental Health Act. With other more pressing political issues surfacing for Theresa May will this policy in fact come to pass?