Better care for mental health patients will hinge on funding | Letters

Readers respond to the government’s proposals to reform the Mental Health Act and end injustice in the treatment of severe mental illnessI read your editorial on the proposed reforms to the Mental Health Act with interest (6 November). The act serves as the balancing point between the state’s negative duty not to interfere with individual liberty without good reason and its positive duties to prevent harm to vulnerable people and the wider public. The criteria for detention represent the threshold at which both of those duties are triggered: detention under the MHA is also a gateway to rights to proactive care and support both during and after detention. We may argue about whether the existing criteria for detention strike the right balance between the state’s positive and negative duties, but it is at least the same balance for everyone.The draft bill sets a much higher threshold for detention unless a person has committed a crime, and while this will lead to fewer people suffering the trauma and indignity of being detained, it will also mean fewer people receiving the positive support and protection of the state – that is unless they commit a crime. Even leaving aside the unexplored equalities implications of such a perverse incentive, it can surely be neither less restrictive of the individual nor more caring of the state to force people into the criminal justice system in order to receive the help they need. Michael Chalmers Associate director of mental health law, North London NHS foundation trust Continue reading...