Mental Health Bill [HL]

I am grateful to the noble Earl for raising this issue. Noble Lords will know from their deliberations on the Bill that all civil patients have the safeguard of a nearest relative. The nearest relative has the right to discharge a patient at any time and, where that discharge is barred, the nearest relative can apply to the tribunal to challenge that detention. The right of a patient to apply to the tribunal and the additional rights of the nearest relative to apply must be explained to the patientby the hospital managers. That is a statutory requirement under Section 132. However, if the patient does not use the right to apply to the tribunal, Section 68 provides the backstop for patients, ensuring that all unrestricted patients, not only those who lack capacity, have the safeguard of an independent review of their case. We think the time periods within Section 68 are appropriate. They ensure that a civil patient who has not applied for a tribunal or otherwise been referred will be referred by the hospital managers after an initial six months of detention. We have expanded the group of patients to whom this applies to ensure that it includes patients who remain on a Section 2 by virtue of a County Court procedure to displace their nearest relative under Section 29. The period spent under Section 2 will, with the new provisions, be taken into account when calculating the six-month period to referral. This is an important move; the28 days is part of the six months. In addition, all unrestricted patients will be referred to the tribunal every three years, as the noble Earl has indicated, if they are adults, and every year if they are under 16. The Bill introduces the option to reduce these periods—which, in a sense, is what the noble Earl is after—so that the backstop safeguard of a tribunal for all patients who do not apply will occur sooner. The Secretary of State and the Welsh Ministers will use this power when they are certain that the resources in the NHS, local authorities and the Mental Health Review Tribunal can be made available without affecting the provision of mental health services to patients with mental disorders. The commitment we make is that we will achieve that through a combination of the Department of Health and the Department for Constitutional Affairs. It is our intention to reduce the time although I am not able at this point to give noble Lords a timescalefor it. The problem with the amendment is that we would almost certainly end up with a more or less immediate increase in tribunal referrals, which may or may not be wanted by the patients concerned, and require hospital managers to arrange for every detained patient who does not apply for a tribunal to be assessed to determine whether they have the capacity to make such an application. In other words, rather than relying on managers to keep an eye out for patients whose lack of capacity may require steps to be taken, it forces managers to assess capacity indiscriminately; and because capacity is, of course, specific to particular decisions, it is not the same as assessing the capacity to consent to treatment, for example. So it should not be assumed that this assessment will be carried out anyway as a routine part of patient care. The noble Earl makes a good point about the length of time. We think the best way to address that is, within the provisions of the Bill, to consider reducing that time when we are able to do so—we commit to do that—and in that way achieve what the noble Earl wishes. However, it is important to ensure that we have safeguards for mental health patients, including those who lack capacity. We think the provisions in the Bill provide the most effective way of recognising our desire to reduce the timescale. I hope the noble Earl will feel able to withdraw his amendment.