Reform of the Mental Health Act 1983: Squandering an Opportunity?

Abstract

This article compares and contrasts two recently published documents: the Report of the Expert Committee (chaired by Professor Genevra Richardson) entitled ‘Review of the Mental Health Act 1983’, and ‘Reform of the Mental Health Act 1983 - Proposals for Consultation’.

Whilst both documents were published in November 1999 under the remit of the Department of Health, the Richardson Report preceded the Green Paper. It was delivered in July 1999 to the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Health, John Hutton. The Richardson Committee had been established in September 1998 by the DoH in order to provide them with expert advice. The Committee was serviced by the DoH. Accordingly, the contents of the final report would have come as no surprise to them, since they had themselves been fully exposed to the developing reasoning of Richardson. In publishing their own Green Paper some four months later, the DoH had had an opportunity to reflect upon the final Richardson Report. Nonetheless, some might argue that, given the time-scale involved in the production of other similar documents in the field, this rush to a Green Paper was unseemly and unwise. Moreover, since it departs markedly from the recommendations of Richardson, one might argue that the pressure to produce has been, and will prove, counter-productive.