The King’s Speech marks the opening of the new parliamentary year and is the first time the new government sets out its main priorities. We welcome the renewed focus on mental health priorities, including:
- Reducing waiting times for NHS mental health services.
- Giving a greater focus on prevention and improving mental health provision for young people.
- Ensuring mental health is given equal attention and focus as physical health.
- A call to action from ministers to modernise and legislate the Mental Health Act so it’s “fit for the twenty first century”.
While we were disappointed that last year’s King’s Speech didn’t reference mental health, this year we particularly welcome the proposed changes to the Mental Health Act. Under this law in England and Wales, people can be detained (or sectioned) and given mental health treatment against their will, to keep them and others safe.
The proposed Mental Health Bill, which would reform the Act, includes:
- People having an automatic right to assessment and treatment, meaning people will get the support they need when they need it.
- The abolition of community treatment orders, which are designed to reduce readmission to hospital by giving people conditions to follow when they are discharged, but they restrict people’s lives and it’s clear that they don’t reduce readmissions.
- Introduce advance choice documents for everyone in a mental health hospital, which would give people much more of a say in how they are treated.
- Give people the right to appeal decisions they don’t agree with.
- Ensure everyone in a mental health hospital is automatically offered an advocate to help them express their choices and views.
- Ensure young people are placed in appropriate settings (i.e. not adult wards) and introduce a test for under 16s to check if they have capacity to make decisions about their treatment.
These changes would make the Act fairer to people of different ages, ethnicities, and economic backgrounds; giving them more choice about the care they receive and strengthening the rights of people in mental health hospitals.
As sustainability is one of our organisational priorities, we also welcome the government’s plans to invest in public transport and renewable energy, and to improve water quality.
Everyturn Mental Health’s Director of Relationships, Liam Gilfellon, commented:
“We’re delighted to see mental health support being honoured in the King’s Speech.
“The Mental Health Act is over 40 years old and is long overdue reform, to keep pace with what people with mental health issues face every day. Over 50,000 people were held under the Act in 2023; by reforming this now we’ll bring around the much-needed choice, independence, and dignity for everyone.
“At Everyturn, we’re committed to making sure that immediate support is available to people who need to access mental health services right now, by continuing to develop accessible, community-based mental health services, so that no one is left to struggle alone.”
