Schedule 6
Mental Health Bill [Lords]
4:30 pm
Angela Browning (Deputy Chairman (Organising and Campaigning), Conservative Party; Tiverton and Honiton, Conservative)
My hon. Friend is right. The purpose of the amendment tabled by my hon. Friends on both ends of the Bench is to establish what happens to a person deprived of liberty, particularly in a care home. It is a slightly different dimension from the Mental Health Act, because we are now considering not just hospitalisation but another kind of accommodation—care homes of one sort and another.
In all other cases where a person is detained, the charges are paid, but if someone is detained in a care home or nursing home, suddenly they are compared not to people detained under the Mental Health Act but to other people resident in care homes and nursing homes, who may well be there as a result of their decision, or that of their carers or relatives, that it is in their best interests. They might be self-funded, paid for by the local authority or a combination of the two. I suggest to the Minister that that is not a comparison for her to make, because such people are a separate group from those whose liberty is denied them for their own good but under the auspices of the Mental Capacity Act.
Although we agree with the proposal, we think that it is unfair to expect people to pay once an authorisation to deprive them of their liberty has been granted. It will put them at a disadvantage relative to all others detained elsewhere, usually in hospitals. I think that the Minister has been looking through the wrong end of the telescope in opposing the amendment. I realise that it has big resource implications; of course it does.
The Minister of State, Department of Health (Ms Rosie Winterton) indicated assent.