The UK Government has published its response to the public consultation on Reforming the Mental Heath Act.
The Independent Review of the Mental Health Act, chaired by Professor Sir Simon Wessely, which reported in December 2018, concluded that the current Act does not work as well as it should for patients, nor for their families and carers. It proposed recommendations for change.
Following the Independent Review, the Government published its white paper in January which accepted the majority of the Review’s recommendations and sought views on their impact and how best to implement them.
The 14-week public consultation on the white paper received more than 1,700 responses. Introducing the report on the response to the consultation, Secretary of State for Health and Social Care Savid Javid MP and Secretary of State for Justice Robert Buckland MP said: “We are pleased to see that there is a broad support for our proposed reforms. We thank all those who contributed – these are once in a generation reforms and we will continue to collaborate in developing and refining them.”