A leading mental health charity has called the new government’s pledge to reform the Mental Health Act a “once-in-a-generation opportunity.”
Responding to the King’s Speech, national charity Mind said that plans announced within it to modernise the Mental Health Act 1983 were “a welcome first step in tackling the nation’s mental health crisis.”
The previous government had pledged to overhaul the outdated Mental Heath Act and a Joint Committee had worked to produce positive recommendations for reform. A new Mental Health Bill was drafted following written and oral evidence from experts across the mental health sector, including people with lived experience of mental ill-health, and charities such as Mind itself.
But, after years of work on the Draft Mental Health Bill 2022, it was dropped from the previous King’s Speech in November 2023.
At the time, Rosena Allin-Khan, Labour MP for Tooting and former shadow minister for mental health who had worked on the Bill, said the disappointment was “palpable.”
Government pledge to ‘modernise’ Mental Health Act
Now that the new Labour government has taken power, it appears that reforming the Mental Health Act is firmly back on the agenda.
In the King’s Speech, given at the State Opening of Parliament on Wednesday 17th July 2024, King Charles III said his new government would “seek to reduce waiting times, focus on prevention and improve mental health provision for young people. It will ensure mental health is given the same attention and focus as physical health. My ministers will legislate to modernise the Mental Health Act so it is fit for the twenty first century [Mental Health Bill].”
The Mental Health Act is the main piece of legislation which sets out when people with mental health problems can be detained for treatment against their will.
Over 40 years after it was introduced, the number of people detained under the Act stands at a five-year high and Mind says measures such as Community Treatment Orders (CTO) are “too often intrusive, restrictive and fail to reduce readmissions as they were intended.”
Mind’s original recommendations for reform of the Act, which they submitted to the cross-party committee, included:
- Fully abolishing Community Treatment Orders for all patients. Black people are 8 times more likely to be issued with a CTO
- Tackling the shameful racism enabled under the Act with greater cultural advocacy and an anti-racist guiding principle
- Introducing an automatic right to assessment and treatment, as well as a right to appeal decisions you don’t agree with
- Introducing a legal duty to offer advanced choice documents, which help give people greater say over the care they receive when unwell
- Strengthening the protections of children and young people to stop them being placed on adult or out-of-area wards and introducing a new statutory decision-making test
Mental Health Act enables “shameful racial disparities”
Dr Sarah Hughes, Chief Executive of Mind, said in response to the King’s Speech:
“Reforming the Mental Health Act is a once-in-a-generation opportunity. With the number of people being detained under the Act at a five-year high, bringing the law into the 21st Century is a welcome first step in tackling the nation’s mental health crisis. The previous government made a number of positive proposals for reforming the Act, but there is still a way to go.
“This bill is a chance to strengthen people’s rights, choice and control when they’re being treated in a mental health hospital. It’s a chance that must be taken to address the shameful racial disparities the law currently enables, particularly for Black people who are nearly four times more likely to be detained. And it’s a chance to ditch Community Treatment Orders, which are meant to give people supervised treatment in the community but are too often intrusive, restrictive and fail to reduce readmissions as they were intended.
“These ambitious reforms will need funding and resources to be delivered and fully realised. We stand ready to work with the new UK government to make sure we seize this opportunity and create the wholesale reform of the mental health system we need now more than ever.”
Mental Health Act reform “desperately needed for millions of people”
During the General Election campaign, Mind expressed concerns that mental health “did not feature much as an issue,” but Dr Sarah Hughes responded to the final result by acknowledging the “positive proposals for mental health” contained in the Labour manifesto and affirming that the charity was “ready to work with ministers and MPs from all parties to bring about the change that is so desperately needed for millions of people.”
She highlighted the fact that nearly 2 million people in England are currently waiting for NHS mental health services, while 40% of mental health providers across the country were rated as “requires improvement” or “inadequate” for safety by the CQC in 2023.
Furthermore, almost 1 in 5 mental health nursing posts are currently vacant, and it is these gaps in the workforce that contribute to the over-use of restrictive practices such as restraint, seclusion and segregation in mental health services.
Young people believe politicians don’t care about their mental health
In June, Mind and two other major mental health organisations – the Children and Young People’s Mental Health Coalition and YoungMinds – published research which revealed that young people don’t think politicians care about their mental health.
This is perhaps not surprising, given that the number of young people struggling with their mental health has nearly doubled in 7 years, with 1 in 5 young people now living with a probable mental health condition, compared to 1 in 9 in 2017.
The research found:
- Less than half of young people (43%) believed that the main political parties who stood for election cared about their mental health
- Over half of young people who thought this (52%) said politicians lack understanding of their experiences
- More than 4 in 10 young people (41%) felt politicians did not really believe the true scale of the issue
- Nearly 3 in 5 (59%) adults said politicians have not done enough to tackle this issue over the last decade
- Almost half (49%) of parents said they were concerned that the state of mental health services would have an impact on their children’s futures
The three organisations called for the new government to prioritise the rollout of early support hubs to ensure that mental health services are available for young people up to the age of 25 to provide them with help before they reach crisis point.
They say that evidence from existing hubs demonstrates that they can engage certain young people who have left school, people from LGBTQIA+ and Black and minority ethnic communities much more effectively than Children and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) and school counselling services.
Essential Mental Health training and support
First Response Training (FRT) is a leading national training provider delivering courses in subjects such as health and safety, first aid, fire safety, manual handling, food safety, mental health, health and social care and more.
An accredited Mindful Employer themselves, FRT’s specialist mental health training courses include Understanding Mental Health, Mental Health Awareness in the Workplace, Managing Stress, Anxiety and Phobias Awareness, Self-Harm Awareness and Suicide Awareness.
They can also provide qualified, approved trainers to deliver accredited Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) training courses, including the Adult, Youth and Aware versions.
A trainer from FRT says:
“We believe that the general public is well aware by now that mental health is a significant issue and that more needs to be done to ensure that people receive the care and support that they need and deserve.
“It is positive that reforming the Mental Health Act and ensuring mental health has parity with physical health were included in the King’s Speech and we are hopeful that these measures will be prioritised and real progress made.
“Organisations, schools, community groups and businesses across the UK can also take some control by undertaking training in mental health to ensure that individuals are well informed about mental health problems and are empowered to offer individuals early help and support. This is an essential step given that 300,000 people are lost from the workforce every year as a result of long-term mental health problems.”
Helpful resources
A brief summary of our mental health training can now be downloaded as an infographic.
We also have a number of free infographics available to download which provide simple tips for helping to manage your mental health and wellbeing. These include:
- Connect with Nature
- 8 Steps to a Good Start to the Year
- Manage Your Stress
- Managing Stress at Work
- Manage Your Anxiety
- Managing Panic Attacks
You can also download our free Guide to Mental Health Training from our website.
For more information on the training that FRT can provide, please call them today on freephone 0800 310 2300 or send an e-mail to info@firstresponsetraining.com.