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Attempts to overhaul mental health law in England and Wales suffered a withering blow last month when a Joint Parliamentary Committee described the draft bill as “fundamentally flawed” and sent it back to committee.
The British Medical Association condemned the bill, which proposed new powers for compulsory treatment and assessment of outpatients in the community setting. These include powers to compel patients to make themselves available for assessment and to reside at specified locations. The BMA advised the committee to “tear the proposals up and start again.”
The plans are aimed at better protecting the public from people with dangerous and severe personality disorders. Over the past few years several murders carried out by people with severe mental illness have provoked furious calls for firmer control of dangerous patients.
The Joint Parliamentary Committee that was set up to scrutinize the bill stated that the plans would “force too many people into compulsory treatment” and that it “places too great an emphasis on protecting the public from a small minority of dangerous mentally ill people.”
It said it feared that the proposed powers could be used to enforce treatment on people who are a “nuisance” but who don't pose any risk to the public.
In a statement to CMAJ, the UK Department of Health wrote that it would review the committee's report carefully. “However … any legislation must ensure that there is a proper balance between protecting the rights and lives of our citizens alongside the rights of the individual.”