scholarly journals ‘Offenders, Deviants or Patients’ - Comments on Part Two of the White Paper

2014 ◽  
Vol 1 (5) ◽  
pp. 21
Author(s):  
Herschel Prins
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Mental Health Professionals ◽  
Good Deal ◽  
Legal Framework ◽  
White Paper ◽  
Green Paper ◽  
Expert Committee ◽  
The Past ◽  
Mental Health Act ◽  
The Government

<p align="LEFT">The Government White Paper Reforming the Mental Health Act follows closely on the heels of the Green Paper - Reform of the Mental Health Act, 1983 which derives from (but also departs from in many respects) the Report of the Expert Committee chaired by Professor Genevra Richardson. One could say, with some justification, that mental health professionals have been ‘deluged’ with paper in this area in the past year or two, so that trying to discern trends has become very difficult. In particular, the material in the White Paper is somewhat closely written and needs to be read with a good deal of care (or, so it seemed to me). To complicate matters further, offender-patients are also discussed in Part I of the White Paper (The Legal Framework) whereas it would have been more logical to have dealt with the proposed provisions for them in Part II. For clarity, I propose to deal with all these matters under one heading.</p>

scholarly journals Reforming the Mental Health Act 1983: ‘Joined Up Compulsion’

2014 ◽  
Vol 1 (5) ◽  
pp. 5
Author(s):  
Philip Fennell
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Learning Disabled ◽  
Legal Framework ◽  
White Paper ◽  
Best Interests ◽  
Mentally Disordered ◽  
Mental Health Act ◽  
Risk Patients ◽  
The Government ◽  
Personality Disordered

<p>This article discusses the two volume White Paper <em>Reforming the Mental Health Act</em> issued by the Government in December 2000. The two volumes are separately titled <em>The New Legal Framework</em> and <em>High Risk Patients</em>. The foreword to the White Paper appears above the signatures of the Secretary of State for Health, Alan Milburn, and the Home Secretary, Jack Straw. This is heralded as an example of ‘joined up government’, and indeed one of the themes of the White Paper is the need for closer working between the psychiatric and criminal justice systems. The primary policy goal of the proposals is the management of the risk posed to other people by people with mental disorder, perhaps best exemplified in Volume One of the White Paper which proclaims that ‘Concerns of risk will always take precedence, but care and treatment should otherwise reflect the best interests of the patient.’ This is a clear reflection of the fact that the reforms are taking place against the background of a climate of concern about homicides by mentally disordered patients, whether mentally ill, learning disabled, or personality disordered.</p>

scholarly journals The new Mental Disorder Tribunal

2014 ◽  
pp. 29
Author(s):  
Mark Mullins
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Mental Disorder ◽  
Fundamental Principle ◽  
Green Paper ◽  
Final Report ◽  
Expert Committee ◽  
Committee Report ◽  
The Public ◽  
Mental Health Act ◽  
The Government

<p>In its final report the Expert Committee on reform of the Mental Health Act 1983 chaired by Professor Genevra Richardson proposed a new Mental Disorder Tribunal. This tribunal would have fundamentally different functions, composition, procedure and powers to the present Mental Health Review Tribunals (MHRTs). The Committee’s objective was not merely to repair the failings of the present MHRT system but to replace it with a new structure promoting the principles of patient autonomy and non-discrimination. Reading the Committee report and the Government’s Green Paper proposals in response together it soon becomes clear that the Government has rejected the recommendation that the new mental health law should be based on principles of autonomy and nondiscrimination. In their place the Green Paper puts “safety” and “risk”. While it will incorporate safeguards to ensure compliance with the Human Rights Act 1998, the “dual aims” of the new Mental Health Act are to be to ensure the health and safety of patients and safety of the public. Whereas the Committee saw the new tribunal as an active guarantor and promoter of individual rights the Green Paper recasts it as a body preoccupied with risk and safety, stating as a fundamental “principle” that: “Issues relating to the safety of the individual patient and of the public are of key importance in determining the question of whether compulsory powers should be imposed”</p>

scholarly journals English Mental Health Reform: Lessons from Ontario?

2014 ◽  
Vol 1 (5) ◽  
pp. 27
Author(s):  
Peter Bartlett
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Health Reform ◽  
White Paper ◽  
Green Paper ◽  
Expert Committee ◽  
The Public ◽  
Mental Health Reform ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Government

<p>Reforms in areas related to mental disability are under debate in England to an extent unprecedented for almost half a century. The Law Commission’s proposals on incapacity, following further consultation from the Lord Chancellor’s Department, have now largely been accepted in principle by the government for legislative enactment at some time in the undetermined future. A joint green paper from the Home Office and the Department of Health has established a policy agenda concerning the governance of people with serious personality disorders. Proposals by an expert committee chaired by Professor Genevra Richardson on mental health reform have likewise been followed up by a government green paper, and the two green papers have in turn resulted in a joint white paper on reform of the Mental Health Act 1983. All this takes place as the Human Rights Act 1998 takes effect, with its guarantees relating to liberty and security of the person, standards for hearings, respect for private and family life, and protection from inhuman or degrading treatment. Throughout the development of the reforms, a number of similar themes have recurred, involving civil rights, the provision of appropriate legal processes, anti-discrimination, the respect for people with capacity, the extension of controls into the community, and the safety both of people with mental disabilities and of the public as a whole.</p><p>At least in the public arena, most of the debate has focussed on the English situation. The premise of this paper is that the situation in the rest of the world may have something to teach us. The paper examines the law of Ontario. While it focuses primarily on those issues related to the Richardson Report and its subsequent government response, Ontario legislation divides issues somewhat differently to English law, and thus overlap with the other reform proposals is inevitable.</p>

scholarly journals Workload implications of the proposed new Mental Health Act – an audit

2003 ◽  
Vol 27 (02) ◽  
pp. 54-57
Author(s):  
Sean Whyte ◽  
Clive Meux
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Clinical Care ◽  
White Paper ◽  
Law Reform ◽  
Clinical Implications ◽  
Health Law ◽  
Forensic Patients ◽  
Mental Health Act ◽  
The Government ◽  
Time Required

Aims and Method To estimate specific time and resource implications for professionals, if proposed changes to the Mental Health Act 1983 (England &amp; Wales) in the Government's white paper were to be implemented unchanged. An audit of time spent on current procedures was extrapolated. Results The amount of time required to comply with the Act will rise substantially (by 27% overall). Social workers and independent doctors will spend 30% and 207% more time respectively, complying with the Act, but psychiatrists providing clinical care to forensic patients should be largely unaffected. Clinical Implications If the Government presses ahead with its plans for mental health law reform as currently proposed, extra resources will be required to provide additional social work and independent medical time – or other services for patients will suffer.

scholarly journals Reform of the Mental Health Act 1983: the Green Paper

2001 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 126-128 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. S. Zigmond
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
White Paper ◽  
Green Paper ◽  
Closing Date ◽  
Mental Health Act ◽  
Department Of Health

The profession awaits the Government's White Paper on a new Mental Health Act (MHA) with trepidation. At the time of writing, the closing date for consultation on the Green Paper (Department of Health, 1999a) has passed. None the less, discussion and lobbying must continue.

scholarly journals Reform of the Mental Health Act 1983 – Convention Implications of the Green Paper

2014 ◽  
pp. 99
Author(s):  
Paul Bowen
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Green Paper ◽  
Mental Health Act ◽  
Human Rights Act ◽  
Human Rights Act 1998 ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Devil ◽  
Made In

Assessing the Convention compatibility of the Government proposals for reform of the Mental Health Act 1983 set out in the Green Paper1 is largely an exercise in speculation, for three reasons.First, the proposals are very broad; the detail, where the devil may be found, is yet to come.Second, the Convention does not permit the Strasbourg authorities to review the legality of national legislation in the abstract, but only with reference to particular cases after the proceedings are complete2. Although that will not necessarily preclude a domestic court from reviewing the lawfulness of any provision of the new Mental Health Act after incorporation of the Human Rights Act 19983, the comments that can be made in this article are necessarily confined to the<br />general rather than the specific.Third, and perhaps most significantly, it is impossible to predict the impact of the Convention following the coming into force of the Human Rights Act 1998 on 2 October 2000.

scholarly journals Foreword

2014 ◽  
pp. 4
Author(s):  
Charlotte Emmett
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Health Care ◽  
Legal Framework ◽  
Green Paper ◽  
Health Law ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Mental Health Act ◽  
Department Of Health ◽  
Review Team ◽  
Key Issues

<p>This special issue of the Journal of Mental Health Law has been prompted by the recent publication of the Government’s Green Paper <em>Review of the Mental Health Act 1983: Proposals for Reform</em>. The Green Paper aims to "modernise the legal framework within which mental health care is delivered" by proposing a number of reforms to the current regime established under the Mental Health Act 1983.</p><p>We have aimed in this edition to highlight some of the key issues arising from both the Green Paper and the Report submitted to the Department of Health by the Scoping Study Review Team, in July 1999.</p>

scholarly journals Foreword

2014 ◽  
Vol 1 (5) ◽  
pp. 3
Author(s):  
Charlotte Emmett
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
White Paper ◽  
Mental Health Act ◽  
The Government

<p align="LEFT">We begin this issue of the Journal by focusing on Parts I and II of the Government White Paper - Reforming the Mental Health Act, which was published in December last year.</p>

scholarly journals Mental Health Guardianship—a Change for the Better?

1982 ◽  
Vol 6 (10) ◽  
pp. 176-177
Author(s):  
Gareth W. Hughes
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Mental Disorder ◽  
Legal Framework ◽  
Psychiatric Practice ◽  
Mentally Disordered ◽  
The Past ◽  
Mental Health Act ◽  
Compulsory Care ◽  
The Uk ◽  
As If

The 1959 Mental Health Act has provided the legal framework for psychiatric practice in the UK for the past two decades. The Mental Health (Amendment) Bill (DHSS, 1981) currently before Parliament proposes to update the Act by improving the safeguards for detained patients, clarifying the position of staff looking after them, and by the removal of uncertainties in the law. The Bill incorporates changes relating to the compulsory care of Mentally Disordered patients in the community whereby a person may be accepted into Guardianship on the grounds that he or she is suffering from a Mental Disorder. Once accepted into Guardianship, the person or body named as Guardian has the power to exercise control over the person as if he or they were the father of the patient, and the patient was under 14 years of age.

scholarly journals ‘Juridogenic’ harm: statutory principles for the new mental health tribunals

2001 ◽  
Vol 25 (9) ◽  
pp. 331-333 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. Obomanu ◽  
H. G. Kennedy
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Green Paper ◽  
Expert Committee ◽  
Proper Place ◽  
Code Of Practice ◽  
Mental Health Act ◽  
Department Of Health ◽  
Explicit Statement ◽  
First Time ◽  
Health Review

The new Mental Health Act for England and Wales is likely to extend the powers of mental health review tribunals (MHRTs) by giving tribunals the power to approve all compulsory treatment (Department of Health, 1999a, b). The medical member may be dropped entirely from the tribunal's proceedings (Richardson & Machin, 2000). In Ireland, a proposed new Mental Health Act will introduce MHRTs for the first time (Calvert, 2000). The 1983 Mental Health Act contains no explicit statement of underlying principles, although some were introduced in the revised Code of Practice. The Expert Committee (Department of Health, 1999b) suggested that the new Act should specify broad principles where these would help in statutory interpretation, particularly because a range of practitioners working in different settings will be required to understand and implement its provisions. The Green Paper initially suggested that the proper place for setting out principles should be a Code of Practice, but ended by inviting comments on the principles proposed by the Expert Committee, and on whether inclusion of principles would aid interpretation of the new Act.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document