The Department of Health and Social Care has launched a consultation and White Paper on plans to reform the Mental Health Act. 

It follows a review and final report published in 2018 that found that the MHA does not always work as well as it should for patients, their families and their carers.

The DHSC is proposing a wide range of changes to rebalance the MHA, to put "patients at the centre of decisions about their own care and ensure everyone is treated equally." These proposals are based on 4 principles that they have been developed in collaboration with "people with lived experience of the MHA". They are:

• choice and autonomy – ensuring service users’ views and choices are respected
• least restriction – ensuring the MHA’s powers are used in the least restrictive way
• therapeutic benefit – ensuring patients are supported to get better, so they can be discharged from the MHA
• the person as an individual – ensuring patients are viewed and treated as individuals

The closing date for responses is 21st April 2021. The White Paper and consultation documents are available on the Gov.uk.

Sarah Castle has been appointed to the role of Official Solicitor and Public Trustee.

Sarah has more than 20 years’ experience working in legal services and handling child protection issues for local government in Kent and Berkshire. She will be joining OSPT from a role at Reading Borough Council. She will take up this post from 4 July 2019.

The Ministry of Justice has opened a call for evidence on how it should revise the Mental Capacity Act 2005 Code of Practice.

The Call for Evidence will "seek to establish the extent to which the current Code of Practice reflects changes in case law and lessons learned through practical use of the Code of Practice over the last 11 years."

The consultation takes the form of an online survey with 39 questions presented into sections reflecting the current chapters of the Code. Helpfully you can save your responses and return later to complete the survey. Submissions close on 7th March 2019.

The survey can be accessed on the MoJ website here.