Mental Health Bill [HL]

moved Amendment No. 25: 25: Clause 17 , page 11, line 33, at end insert ““; and (e) the making of arrangements for the deployment, supervision and support of persons approved.”” The noble Baroness said: One of the many joys of being a member of the Joint Committee was to watch my noble friend Lord Carlile as he chaired a very disparate and feisty bunch of people. He took them, in a masterful way, through some extremely complex issues and he brought before us a range of witnesses all of whom held passionate views and were very expert. He nearly managed the impossible. He produced a very good report but it was nearly a unanimous report. There was one exception. On one vote, two members of the Committee—myself and David Hinchliffe, the then chair of the Health Select Committee in another place—took a dissenting view as regards keeping the distinctions for social workers as opposed to health professionals. We did so for two reasons. One was that we believed that it was important that the distinct traditions of social work, as opposed to the disciplines of health, formed an additional and sometimes second opinion in the health and social care treatment of an individual. The other reason was that, because we come from social care backgrounds, we appreciated the importance of the involvement of people from different organisations. Different organisations have different cultures, practices and policies. We saw the importance of maintaining those two different perspectives on decisions about the health and social care of people with mental health problems. It is for that reason that I have been happy to put my name to this amendment. The Bill allows the Secretary of State to give directions to local authorities about the making of appropriate contractual and management arrangements for approved mental health professionals. AMHPs—I have not quite got the acronym slipping off the tongue, as they are not yet established—unlike approved social workers, need not be employees of a local authority. They could be free agents; they could come from voluntary organisations. That may be a good and advisable thing. All that is necessary is that there should be directions on their training and approval. Thereafter all the operational arrangements about these subcontractors are left open, therefore they could be employees or have a contractual agreement with the health trust. In my view—and I imagine it would be the view of Mr Hinchliffe were he still a Member of Parliament—that does not maintain the necessary distance from the decision-making of the health trust which would be responsible for a person’s treatment. For that reason—it is not an unfounded reason, given the overall move towards joint health and social care bodies—there could be an important safeguard for patients where somebody from a distinctly different organisation comes in and on occasion can see something that is blindingly obvious but that had been completely overlooked by people working in the particular culture of health. I hope the Government may address this point, perhaps not by means of my amendment but by tweaking the Bill, just to ensure that that small but important safeguard is there, particularly where people’s social care needs are met in the community. I beg to move.