Mental Health Tribunals and the Draft Mental Health Bill 2004

Abstract

he draft Mental Health Bill greatly extends the powers of mental health review tribunals so that the proposed mental health tribunals take control of the whole process of compulsorily detaining people in hospital. The new tribunals will have the sole power to make orders continuing the patient’s liability to some form of compulsory detention; instead of reviewing detention only on an application by (or on behalf of) the patient, there will be a new system of automatic referral to the tribunal of all detained cases within the first 28 days of admission. The intention is to limit the power of the clinical supervisor, particularly where public safety is an issue, and to replace medical decisions with legal ones. The driving force is the Human Rights Act 1998. The subjection of an individual to compulsory detention, where no wrong has been done, is an anomaly which needs to be subject to the strictest safeguards. The proposed changes seek to provide these safeguards by tightening the process of admission and ensuring the early and automatic involvement of the tribunal so that the reasons for compulsion are argued before, and the decisions made by, a judicial body. This will involve a lot of work. There were some 25,000 detentions in 2003 and many patients did not appeal against their detention. If the new proposals become law, all detentions will now have to be considered by the new process.