Mental Health Bill [HL]

moved Amendment No. 51: 51: Schedule 3 , page 58, line 31, at end insert— ““In section 121 of the 1983 Act (Mental Health Act Commission), after subsection (4) insert— ““(4A) The Secretary of State shall, after consultation with the Commission and with such other bodies as appear to him to be concerned, direct the Commission to keep under review the care and treatment, or any other aspect of treatment, of all patients in hospitals, independent hospitals and in such other settings as he may decide who are subject to sections 4A and 4B of the Mental Capacity Act 2005. (4B) Where the Commission has good cause to suspect that a patient who is neither liable to be detained under this Act, nor subject to safeguards under sections 4A and 4B of the Mental Capacity Act 2005, is being deprived of his liberty as a consequence of admission to a hospital or an independent hospital, any person authorised by the Commission may— (a) visit and interview and, if he is a registered medical practitioner, examine in private that patient; (b) require the production of and inspect any records relating to the treatment and care of that patient, and (c) raise any concerns with the appropriate authority.”””” The noble Lord said: My Lords, I will speak to Amendments Nos. 51 and 52. The Mental Health Act Commission is primarily a visitorial body, whose members meet patients detained under the Act and keep under review the powers and duties of the 1983 Act. It is a modern incarnation of an honourable, or at least relatively honourable, tradition of such bodies, stretching back to the seventh Earl of Shaftesbury’s lunacy commissioners of the mid-19th century. In some ways, the lunacy commissioners had an easier task than that faced by the Mental Health Act Commission today. The landscape that they surveyed was largely one of asylums and private madhouses, within which most patients were subject to the legal powers that they were concerned to report on. But the increasing emphasis throughout the 20th century, rightly, on informal treatment has meant that most patients passing through the hospital systems today are not formally subject to legal powers and are out of the reach of the Mental Health Act Commission. I am not seeking to make the point that the Mental Health Act Commission should have under its purview all mental health services. Indeed, in discussions with the Government on their plans to merge the Mental Health Act Commission with other health and social care inspectorates, I have argued consistently for the protection of a visitorial role, with a primary focus on those who are deprived of liberty in the psychiatric system. The Mental Health Act Commission has been saying to various Governments for more than 20 years that not everyone who is deprived of liberty is subject to the formal powers of the 1983 Act. Our observations were confirmed by the European court rulings that have led to the so-called Bournewood proposals in this Bill. Even if Parliament accepts those proposals, and monitoring is established for the new legal framework for authorising deprivation of liberty, I guarantee to this House that there will still be patients who are subject to conditions amounting to deprivation of liberty without any formal powers and safeguards being invoked. In Committee, I remarked on the dreadful irony that the safeguard of Mental Health Act Commission visiting extends to those who are lawfully detained but not to those who are unlawfully detained. The law at present appears to require Mental Health Act commissioners to walk past those patients who may be incarcerated unlawfully in dirty, cell-like rooms on the grounds that formal powers under the 1983 Act have not been applied to deprive those patients of their liberty in a lawful manner. This amendment would simply allow the Mental Health Act Commission to have legitimate access to patients and records and to raise its concerns formally when it encounters worrying situations concerning informal patients or patients subject to the Bournewood provisions. I emphasise now, as I did in Committee, that this is not a call for extra resources, but a simple request that the Mental Health Act Commission be enabled to raise questions about patients that its commissioners cannot but notice while undertaking their current statutory duties. I have revised my amendment since Committee, having taken account of the Government’s correct concern at the earlier drafting, which implied that a statutory body could ““keep under review”” the unlawful treatment of patients. I have rephrased the amendment to be more specific about what the statutory powers should be when the Mental Health Act Commission encounters de facto detained patients. In Committee, I said in response to the Minister that I could not accept his assurance that legal safeguards would be addressed in future legislation to merge current health and social care inspectorates. I cannot see why we should not take this opportunity to amend the commission’s remit now and provide some protections in the interim period, even if these measures will eventually be overtaken by events. The Minister knows well that existing powers under the 1983 Act enable the commission’s remit to be extended in the way that I suggest here. He will also know that our request for an extension of similar effect has been extant since 1985. I believe that I have the support of many noble friends in this House and I hope that the Minister will be able to respond to my amendment in a constructive manner. I beg to move.