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06 September 2018 / Keith Wilding
Issue: 7807 / Categories: Features , Mental health
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Time to be mindful

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Keith Wilding reviews the Mental Health Act & considers some ambitious proposals for a brighter future

  • Recognition of the need for resources.
  • Leading the way to social change.
  • Seeking to enhance the autonomy of the individual.
  • Linking future mental health provisions.
  • A single route of challenge to detention under the 1983 Act (potentially).

In October 2017 the prime minister commissioned an independent review of the Mental Health Act 1983 (MHA 1983) to be chaired by Sir Simon Wessely, a past president of the Royal College of Psychiatrists. The terms of reference set out, among other things, the broad aim for people with mental health problems to be treated with dignity and for their liberty and autonomy to be protected as far as possible and to create ‘a forward looking plan of changes to legislation and practice, resulting in an enduring legacy of mental health support’. The Wessely review has recently published an interim report (‘The independent review of the Mental Health Act, Interim report’).

The review so

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