Clause 10 - Follow-up assessment
Drugs Bill
10:15 am
Mrs Cheryl Gillan (Shadow Minister, Home Affairs; Chesham and Amersham, Conservative)
Obviously, this clause deals with the follow-up assessment. The way this Bill is drafted, one has to keep going back to the attendance at the initial assessment, and forward to arrangements for the follow-up assessment.
There seems to be rather a lot of administrative detail on the face of this Bill. The way I read it—and I need this confirmed by the Minister—is that, although the two assessments are compulsory and contain sanctions, the important provision of the care plan, and its implementation, has no element of compulsion whatsoever. If that is the case, I must ask whether this provision is really going to help. If we are going to go to the lengths of having two assessments—initial and follow-up—but there is no inducement for assistance or treatment after that, does this not fall short of what is required?
I will listen to what the Minister has to say on this with interest, and I hope that she will let me intervene. It seems to me that there is a huge lacuna between the compulsion of the assessments—finding out what is wrong with the individual—and the substance of the treatment, which is not subject to any sanctions.