Mental Health Bill [HL]

That was a very useful contribution; I am grateful to the noble Lord for making it. I would like to take this opportunity to pay tribute to the work of the Mental Health Act Commission in keeping under review the operation of the 1983 Mental Health Act. I would commend to the Committee the commission’s reports and general work. I understand that the noble Lord has put this forward as a debating point. We could not accept the amendments as such. The essential point is that it is our intention, as announced by the Chancellor in his Budget Statement of 2005, to create a new regulator in 2008. This will build on the work and successes of the Mental Health Act Commission, the Healthcare Commission and the Commission for Social Care Inspection, working across the health and adult social care sector in England. I see the noble Earl, Lord Howe, thinking back to some debates we had on that matter quite a few years ago. No doubt he will remind me in due course of what I said then. Regarding the proposals for amending the Mental Capacity Act, the Government are in full agreement with the noble Lord that an essential part of introducing those safeguards is monitoring how they are applied in practice. That is why we have taken a power in Schedule 6 to make an insertion into the Mental Capacity Act to give one or more bodies a duty to monitor and report on the operation of the Bournewood safeguards. Essentially, the monitoring bodies would have powers to monitor and report on the operational safeguards; visit hospitals and care homes; visit and interview people in hospitals and care homes; and require the production of an inspection report. The monitoring would require the body to look at protocols and procedures in place for complyingwith duties placed on managing authorities and supervisory bodies; whether the guidance in the code of practice is being complied with—I thought noble Lords would be pleased to hear that; whether conditions attached to authorisation and requirements to request review of circumstantial change are complied with; and whether appropriate steps are being taken in cases where authorisation has been refused. It is intended that this monitoring body be an integral part of the overall regulation inspection regime for health and adult social care. We intend that the new body should monitor the use of deprivation of liberty provisions in the Mental Capacity Act in England. The deprivation of liberty provisions and the establishment of the new regulator are planned to take effect in 2008. In any interim period between the two coming into effect, the monitoring role will be undertaken by the existing bodies alongside their current roles. We are in very constructive discussions with the three commissions about how that might work in practice. We are proposing to use the regulation-making power in paragraph 155 of Schedule 6 to require supervisory bodies and managing authorities to make information available to the regulatory bodies. I hope that that meets some of the issues raised by the amendments. Amendment No. 43 would open the possibility of requiring the Mental Health Act Commission to visit all care homes to monitor the Bournewood safeguards. That is not something that we would agree to. Our interim arrangements will enable the Commission for Social Care Inspection, which already visits care homes, to undertake the monitoring of the use of the Bournewood proposals in that setting. I turn to the wish of the noble Lord, Lord Patel, to give the MHAC powers to monitor patients whom it considers may be detained but who are neither subject to detention under the Mental Health Act nor subject to a deprivation of liberty under our proposals for the Mental Capacity Act. I say at once that I clearly understand the concerns raised by the noble Lord, but I think that an issue arises in law in saying that such patients, who in effect are illegally detained, should have their cases kept under review. I am clear—this was reinforced by the debate—that it will be for the regulator and, where appropriate, the courts to address these situations. With a single regulator, we want to ensure that quick action can be taken whenever such a case comes to the attention of staff who are responsible for visiting patients detained under the Mental Health Act or deprived of liberty under the Mental Capacity Act. I will take the noble Lord’s comments into account when taking forward the proposals for a single regulator. Clearly, we will want to ensure that there is even better co-ordination between that part of the new body charged with regulating hospitals and the part that will inherit the responsibility for visiting patients who are subject to compulsion or deprived of their liberty. We will consider further the right range of powers for the new regulator, including how the regulator’s enforcement powers should apply. I hope that I have responded positively to some very real issues raised by the noble Lord.