Tough new controls on violent and `untreatable' patients
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.TOUGH NEW controls on potentially dangerous patients discharged from psychiatric hospitals are to be announced tomorrow in the biggest shake-up of mental health legislation for 40 years.
Alan Milburn, the Secretary of State for Health, will publish proposals for a radical reform of the Mental Health Act 1993, which was an updated version of the 1959 Act. The proposals are the third plank of his strategy to modernise the NHS, after his announcement last month of new targets for tackling cancer and heart disease. At present, 99 per cent of mental patients are looked after in the community.
A spokesman from the Department of Health said the new proposals were designed not to abandon community care but to end the "couldn't care less" approach, in which "dangerous patients were left to get on with it". Ministers believe there is a third way between asylums and community care.
Under the Green Paper's proposals, patients discharged from hospital will be given an order specifying where they will live and a care plan similar to a statement of special needs for a child at school. Patients who disregard their plan will be returned to hospital for compulsory treatment.
But pressure groups for the mentally ill say compulsory treatment outside hospital is an unacceptable breach of civil liberties. Marjorie Wallace, of Sane, a mental health charity, said: "We are not in favour of treatment outside hospital or a clinical setting, mainly on the grounds that these are pretty heroic drugs and patients given them against their will need monitoring for side-effects. Our view is that two or three months in hospital can stabilise a person much better than making them come for injections in the community."
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments