Ma mental health law - Concentrating on one area, evaluate the effectiveness of existing mental health law in meeting the needs of, and upholding the rights of, individuals with mental health problems, and compare it with current proposals for change.(exa

On the sixteenth of November 2006 , the Mental Health Bill was tabled in the Upper House of Parliament . Its main objective is to amend the 1983 Mental Health Act and inter alia to include the so called Bournewood Safeguards in the Mental Capacity Act of 2005 . The main quaesitum of the 1983 Act was to specify the conditions under which people with mental diss could be confined , without their consent , in to be administered medication . This Act had clearly specified the various precautions and procedures to be adopted while taking such measures . A

br very important objective of this Act was to administer treatment to the mentally ill so as to mitigate the risk posed by them to others and themselves (1

In the year 1998 , the Richardson committee was established in to suggest amendments to improve the 1983 Act . This committee submitted its report to the Government in 1999 . The National Health Scheme Plan for amending the mental health law was submitted in the month of July 2000 In this fashion several reports and proposals were submitted . Finally the Government announced in March 2006 that it would amend the 1983 Act instead of enacting new legislation (1

The latest Bill introduced was designed to amend the Mental Capacity Act in addition to the Mental Health Act . This was due to the ECtHR ruling in the Bournewood case . The main changes sought to be made by this Bill are that this Act after modification will define mental dis per se without specifying sub - classifications . In addition , it will institute an appropriate treatment test that will supplant the previous treatability test . This Bill will permit a wider group of medical personnel who can assume the role of either an approved Social Worker or a Responsible Medical Officer (1

This Bill will contain a provision that will allow mental patients to approach county courts to bring about a change in the location of their near relative . Further , this new Bill will make civil partners members of the list of relatives . In addition , there is a proposal in the new Bill to introduce supervised community treatment , which will permit some mental patients to be administered treatment while residing within the community (1

The new Bill is seized with the matter of establishing a Mental Health Review Tribunal . This Tribunal will require hospital managers to expedite the referral of cases to it . Furthermore , there will be just one Tribunal for England and one for Wales . A very important change that this Bill proposes to engender is that it will abolish the current finite restriction s . The implication of this change is that a mentally sick person can be detained as long as it is apprehended that such a person poses a risk to others

The UK Government was subjected to antagonism , protest and unequivocal opposition from the general public and those who were interested in mental health care . This resulted in the Government 's retreat from a single minded attempt to implement the...