New mental health powers raise concerns

With findings from the Count Me In Census showing that black people are 44% more likely to be sectioned than their white counterparts, despite having similar rates of mental ill health as any other ethnic group these new changes have raised alarm bells in many quarters as health experts warned these new powers will be used disporportunately against ethnic minorities.  

Slammed as psychiatric asbos when they were introduced in 2006, the new CTOs (Community Treatment Orders) have come with warnings from health experts that these changes will effectively make countless of black people prisoners within their own homes.  

The Government has indicated that the kinds of people who will be put on CTO will be those who have a long history of coming in and out of the services. Health campaigners point out that this group is largely young black men, those who disagree with the opinions of clinical teams and those who like to do things differently.  Even last year mental health lawyer Chinyere Inyama, commenting on CTOs said: ‘we know that it will be black people who largely fall into this category.'

Charity says CTOs will fail to benefit patients

Mind has long had serious concerns that Community Treatment Orders will not only fail to benefit patients, but risk casting the net too widely and subjecting people to compulsory powers when it is neither necessary nor appropriate. In light of this, it is vital that people have access to an advocacy service that will stand up for their rights and safeguard them against the misuse of potentially oppressive powers,' Mind's chief executive Paul Farmer said.

There are concerns that although the majority of the new powers within the 2007 Mental Health Act are in place, there will be a delay of a minimum of six months before people will be able to access the statutory advocacy services included in the Act to protect them.

Ian Johnston, Chief Executive, British Association of Social Workers said: ‘it is now up to the NHS and local authorities to ensure no one who is subject to the new powers misses out on essential safeguards through lack of access to advocacy during this time."

Commentators say that this is cold comfort for service users, many of whom may be too unwell to be able to know how to navigate the health or social services systems in order to ensure that their rights are protected.

Changes in mental health law step in wrong direction

This change in mental health law viewed as a step away from the progress needed to address the discrimination within mental health care. The recommendations made within the David Bennett Inquiry were the focus of the National Service on Mental Health held in central London last week.  ‘The recommendations within the Bennett report are common sense. The purpose of public inquiries is to ensure that the mistakes which were made are not allowed to happen again. If the Bennett recommendations were fully taken on board by Government it would ensure that services improve not just for black people but for everyone who uses the services,' Baroness Lola Young of Hornsey said.

The mental health charity Mind have also pointed out that  patients who will be subjected to new compulsory powers under the Mental Health Act from today,  face being denied access to critical support and protection.

 In a statement published today Mind say that under the new laws, patients detained or subject to a community treatment order should be legally entitled to an independent mental health advocate. The charity says the Government has delayed the roll out of the posts for six months and is ill prepared for their proposed introduction next April.

CTO's extend compulstory powers beyond hospital

Community treatment orders (CTOs) which will for the first time extend compulsory treatment beyond hospital and into people's homes, are one of the most controversial new aspects of the Mental Health Act.

Health practitioners will now have the power to force people with mental health problems to undergo treatment in the community against their will or face being returned to hospital.

The Government's own research shows that CTOs do not work.

 An independent study commissioned by the Government concluded that CTO do not positively assist patient's recovery or reduction in risk to the public.

 "Such a clause has no place within mental health legislation, this has come straight out of the Home Office and is being driven by an agenda of fear," the then shadow health minister Tim Lawton, said at the time the changes were being discussed in parliament.

These changes fly in the face of the calls made by community health experts speaking on the eve of the 10^th anniversary of the death of David Bennett. Alicia Spence said: ‘services need to be underpinned by humanity, where people are seen as individuals rather than being defined by their diagnosis. They need to be given hope not just large quantities of medication, and that is really the only way we are going to see an improvement failures within the system that have existed from many years now.'

Dangers new owers will be used too widely 

‘There is a danger that in a risk-averse climate some clinicians will use the powers too readily and too widely, and risk sweeping people into compulsion and restrictions when it is neither helpful nor appropriate. Alliance chair Alison Cobb chair of the Mental Health Alliance said.

The 2007 Mental Health Act amended key parts of the 1983 Mental Health Act. Key provisions are implemented from today, including the introduction of supervised community treatment, new conditions for the use of compulsion and changed roles for health professionals in using compulsory powers. A statutory right to advocacy was also in the Act but will not be implemented in England until April 2009.