Black Mental Health UK: your news, policy and research resource on mental health and African Caribbean communities. We aim to reduce the inequalities in the treatment and care of people from African Caribbean communities and inform these communities on how to influence the strategic development, policy design and implementation of services.

This report was commissioned to looked at the international experiences of CTO (Community Treatment Orders) at a when mental health legislation was under review. Considerations were being made as to the feasibility of the introduction of CTOs in the UK.  The authors of the study conclude that compulsory CTOs alone do not reduce admission rates.

This reports concludes that CTO's alone do not reduce admissions to psychiatric hospital and the authors state  that health service planners, clinicians, patients and carers should question the rationale for CTOs and advocate more effective treatments.

The excessive use of the 1983 Mental Health Act to detain black people has meant that people from this group are more likely to be in locked wards, to be diagnosed with schizophrenia, receiving higher doses of medication and are less likely to receive talking treatments than their white counterparts.

Government advisor on mental health, Prof. Kwame McKenzie made it public that the research shows that CTO's will be more likely to be used on ethnic minorities and this Bill will further undermine relationships between different ethnic groups.

BMH UK called for the removal of CTOs from proposed legislation before it was made law.  The call was turned down and CTO's were included in the 2007 Mental Health Act which received Royal Assent in July 2007.