Mental Health Act 2007 (Consequential Amendments) Order 2008

My Lords, I am grateful for the thoughtful contributions to this debate. I know that many noble Lords have strong views on mental health and a great deal of expertise in it. I shall pick up some of the key points that were made. The noble Earl talked about three issues: advocacy, information and the forms. The decision was taken to bring the provisions on IMHA services in England into force in April 2009 because of the need to develop suitable training and commissioning arrangements for those services. That is still the case. Although there is no statutory requirement for services to provide independent mental health advocacy support before April 2009, advocacy provision is already available on a non-statutory basis from a number of agencies, and we expect these arrangements to continue. The noble Earl also asked whether there will be additional funding for advocacy. We are committed to funding independent mental health advocacy, and funding for this, together with commissioning arrangements, will be announced later this year. On the delay in announcing funding and commissioning arrangements for the services, we have publicly said that these services will be introduced in England in April 2009, and that is still the case. The commissioning arrangements will be announced shortly, and to support the process, comprehensive guidance for commissioners will also be published shortly. The noble Earl asked whether primary care trusts or local authorities will commission the services and why there has been no announcement. We consulted on this. Different people have different views on who should commission IMHA services, so we want to ensure a system that offers maximum flexibility but delivers a high-quality service. We will announce our conclusion about those arrangements at the same time, so the announcement will be part of the same package. The noble Earl and the noble Lord, Lord Alderdice, talked about supervised community treatment. We see this as an improvement to after-care under supervision, and we see no reason to delay its implementation on account of the need to take longer to prepare for the introduction of advocacy. Clearly, IMHAs have to have appropriate training and experience. This will be set in regulations, and we are developing training materials for precisely this purpose. I will confirm the timetable for that later, as I am not absolutely certain at the moment. Both noble Lords talked about information, which is extremely important for patients and their families. Section 132 of the Act places a duty on hospital managers to provide information to patients both orally and in writing. To help them, the department has provided updated leaflets, which are also on the Department of Health website. Although the use of those leaflets is optional and managers’ own materials can be developed, the materials are there and there is a duty on managers to provide them. I undertake to look into the availability of the forms, as that is clearly very important, but the information that I have at the moment suggests that the forms have to be purchased. The contractors have assured us that they will be dispatched and that there is no need for panic ordering. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Williamson, for his kind remarks and for the work that he did, among others, during the passage of the Bill. I will resist the temptation at this stage to reopen some of the issues to which the noble Lord, Lord Alderdice, referred in his broader comments, such as the definitions and approved mental health professionals, partly because of the time, partly because noble Lords here are significantly more experienced in these matters than I am, and partly because, as the noble Lord, Lord Williamson, said, it is probably not appropriate to reopen all those discussions while we are seeing this through. On that basis, I hope that noble Lords will be content with this draft order. On Question, Motion agreed to. [The Sitting was suspended from 8.08 to 8.40 pm.]