The Mental Health Bill

The first major piece of legislation my Liberal Democrat colleagues and I scrutinised this month was the Mental Health Bill. The bill would amend the Mental Health Act 1983 with the aim of modernising the mental health care system and enhancing patient rights. 

The measures in the Bill are designed to strengthen the voice of patients subject to the Act by giving them greater involvement in decisions about their care and treatment. They aim to add statutory weight to patients’ rights to participate in care planning and treatment choices, ensuring their views are central to the process. The Bill also seeks to increase scrutiny of detention so that it is used only when absolutely necessary and for the shortest possible time. In addition, it limits the use of the Act to detain autistic people and those with a learning disability, ensuring that such detention cannot occur solely on the basis of these conditions.

Whilst the direction of Government legislation over the past year has certainly given me pause, I am pleased to say that my Liberal Democrat colleagues and I are encouraged by the bill’s emphasis on empowering patients and giving them greater control over their treatment decisions.

However, while I support the overall direction of the bill, I believe there is room for improvement, particularly when it comes to preventative mental health care. I am continuing to lobby the Government to strengthen measures that focus on early intervention, especially for young people who may face mental health challenges at critical stages in their development.

With public services stretched so thin, particularly in rural areas like ours, it is imperative to focus on using our limited resources in the most effective ways we can, and early intervention is a fundamental step towards that. 

Wiltshire is one of the lowest funded Local Authorities in the country and every attempt to increase our budget often descends into a tug of war with myself and our local council pleading with the Government to grant us the funding our community deserves. My Liberal Democrat colleagues and I are trying to solve this systemic issue by amending the Bill to place a duty on integrated care boards to ensure that services in the community have the necessary level of resource to meet demand on services. 

Part of this amendment includes a provision to assess and report on these services every two years to ensure that no one struggling in our community is left out in the cold. 

Growing up with both your parents being teachers, as I did, you can see the burden of responsibility placed on educators to nurture their students both intellectually and emotionally. My Liberal Democrat colleagues and I understand these issues and we are advocating for a dedicated and qualified mental health professional be appointed in every school to provide necessary support and guidance for children. Having a dedicated and qualified mental health professional ensures that the emotional wellbeing of every student is accounted for at a difficult and transitional part of life and has the potential to save the treasury millions down the line. 

I think the Bill takes a great many steps towards addressing many of our systemic issues with mental health, but I fear that without tackling the public health crisis that is children’s online safety, and without fixing the SEND system once and for all, we’ll continue to see the same problems again and again.