Mental Health Bill [HL]

I support the noble Earl, Lord Howe, in this amendment. I will not speak long, as we are running behind and the Whips are getting a little anxious. There are two brief points that I wish to add to what the noble Earl has said. First, we have had a long discussion already about how ECT is viewed generally by the patient community. It seems to me key that, if we want to give those patients the sense that they are safe—some of them actually ask occasionally for ECT, as the noble Baroness, Lady Murphy, said—this accreditation is absolutely vital. There is not only a patient safety issue, but the issue of the treatment being seen to be safe and patients having trust in places where ECT is carried out. The second point is the worrying statistic from the survey of those who are already members of the voluntary scheme that was shown at one of our briefings from the Mental Health Alliance. Because ECT is not a high priority in mental health services, only 28 per cent of those services have a training budget. Where ECT is being carried out and they have already joined a voluntary accreditation scheme, even they are not having regular training. It seems to me, therefore, that we all ought to support a compulsory accreditation scheme under the aegis of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, where training is a key part of how the treatment is carried out. I hope that the Minister will give us some comfort on that.