Clause 34
Mental Health Bill [Lords]
10:30 am
Tim Boswell (Daventry, Conservative)
Welcome to the Chair, Mr. Cook. I will briefly endorse the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton with two of my own. First, clearly there is difficulty throughout the process in that one wants assessments to be as contemporary as possible, but, on the other hand, they should not be vexatious either to the patient or to the examining professionals. The Minister might argue that it is not possible to keep assessing people for ever, and I think that there would be a point to that. On the other hand, I find my hon. Friend’s arguments very cogent in relation to the need to do a proper reassessment, and not to give the SOAD the opportunity to issue a blank cheque. It is good medical practice to reassess such patients, particularly if there have been changes in circumstances, and while that does not automatically preclude a continuation of the treatment, it demands a reassessment of it.
I shall make a further point. Even among professionals, one imagines that there may be some difficulty in dealing with legislation of this length and complexity, although it eventually distils to good practice. The Minister should not be frightened about the complexity of the new clause, since she is happy to present to the Committee schedule 6, an extremely complex and lengthy working out of difficulties about Bournewood and the Mental Capacity Act 2005. Speaking as a non-lawyer, I think that it is sometimes necessary to write at great length in order to anticipate and codify the circumstances under which certain things should happen by way of good practice.