Mental Health Bill [HL]

moved Amendment No. 32: 32: After Clause 25, insert the following new Clause— ““Independent mental health advocacy: young persons After section 125 of the 1983 Act insert— ““125C Independent mental health advocacy: young persons (1) The appropriate authority must arrange, to such extent as it considers necessary to meet all reasonable requirements, for help from persons to be known as independent mental health advocates, to be available for patients aged 18 years or under. (2) The help available under the arrangements must include— (a) help in obtaining information about and understanding— (i) what medical treatment is being provided to the patient; (ii) why it is being provided; (iii) under what authority it is being provided; (iv) the requirements of this Act which apply in connection with the patient’s treatment; and (v) the rights which can be exercised by or in respect of him under this Act, and (b) help (by way of representation or otherwise) in exercising those rights.”””” The noble Lord said: My Lords, this amendment was tabled in Committee by the noble Baroness, Lady Howells of St Davids, whose name is again attached to it, and spoken to by the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, who has now moved on to even greater things. I draw the Minister’s attention to the fact that this is what I described on the last occasion as the mini-amendment; that is, it deals with advocacy for children and young people. It does not deal with the other question of advocacy. I did not retable that amendment, although the noble Lord, Lord Patel of Bradford, has done so, and it is not grouped with this amendment. I will deal only with the question of advocacy for children. We have convincing evidence that children and young adults who are admitted to in-patient units do not always have information and are subject to confusion and fear. That is shown, for example, by the report from the office of the Children’s Commissioner, which was specific on this point. I want briefly to refer to two elements. The Children’s Commissioner made it clear that difficulties did arise and quoted specific examples, so we are basing our argument to a considerable degree on facts and evidence. Many of the young people were dissatisfied and unhappy about the in-patient services. In one case, no education was made available, although the patient was well within the ““young”” category for education. We believe that a specific requirement to make advocacy available to children and young people would be helpful in preventing them from switching off from the services and that it would provide a better basis for treatment and rehabilitation. The amendment is in line with the national service framework for children. In our view, the costs would not be high—perhaps about £100,000 a year for compulsory admissions and up to £1 million for all children and young people. In so far as the Minister may insist that much of this work is already being done, the new expenditure is correspondingly lower. I have brought this amendment forward now because it would be helpful to have the Minister’s assurances about the action that the Government and the authorities are encouraging in this area. That is what we are interested in; we want to know that we are making progress in making advocacy for children and young people more widely available. I beg to move.