Police will no longer be able to hold people who are being detained for mental health reasons in police cells, under government plans for England and Wales.
Officers can currently use cells as a “place of safety” for up to 24 hours to allow those needing immediate care to be assessed by a doctor.
New legislation will also introduce additional rights for those receiving treatment, in a bid to modernise decades-old mental health laws.
Charities have broadly welcomed the changes, whilst highlighting the need for better funding for mental health.
Health Secretary Wes Streeting said the “outdated” system was in need of changes to bring it “in line with the 21st Century”.
People can be detained under the Mental Health Act – or sectioned – for their own safety, or the safety of others.
Fully banning the use of police cells during detention was first proposed in draft legislation published under Boris Johnson’s government, following a wide-ranging review of mental health laws published in 2018.
But although that draft law underwent extensive scrutiny by MPs, it was not introduced to Parliament by the time of July’s election.
Under the current law, people who police believe are suffering from a mental disorder and are in “immediate need of care or control” can be detained so that they can be examined for possible treatment.
Last year 34,685 people were detained under these circumstances, the majority to health settings such as a hospital A&E department.
Some 314 detentions – around 1% – were to a police cell, with the proportion falling from around 4% in 2017, when restrictions on their use were tightened.
Those detained in a police cell can typically only be held for 24 hours and must be assessed by a social worker and doctor during that time.
A cross-party committee of MPs scrutinising the previous proposals had welcomed the ban on their use, but had called for an increase in appropriate places to detain people in healthcare settings alongside the change.
Detention limits
Labour had pledged to reform mental health legislation in its election manifesto – branding existing laws, drawn up in the 1980s, as “woefully out of date”.
It had argued the current system discriminates against black people – who are more likely to be detained, according to official statistics – and had also criticised how the system treated autistic people and people with learning disabilities.
Its new Mental Health Bill, to be published on Wednesday, will introduce a 28-day limit on how long autistic people and people with learning disabilities can be detained, unless they have a co-occurring mental health condition.
It will also give people enhanced rights to select a person to represent their interests, and introduce additional requirements on clinicians to consult with people close to patients about their care.
The rules on granting community treatment orders, which impose certain monitoring conditions on detained people discharged from hospital, are also expected to be changed.
The health department said their use would be made more “proportionate”, although it did not offer details.
‘Human rights scandal’
The bill is set to largely mirror proposals included in the draft Tory law, including raising the threshold to detain people, and requiring that there is a realistic prospect that suggested treatment would have a therapeutic benefit.
One area where it is expected to differ is in granting patients the right to draw up a document setting out their treatment preferences if they become unwell.
The Conservative government had rejected making this a legal right, arguing that its preference was to retain flexibility in the system and it did not want to create a hierarchy of different documents.
Labour has previously said the changes in the bill would take a number of years to implement fully, to give time to “recruit and train more clinical and judicial staff”.
The National Autistic Society said it welcomed the bill as a chance to end the “human rights scandal” of inappropriate detention.
Mental health charity Mind also said the bill would move England and Wales a “step closer to a more progressive mental health system,” whilst adding that “proper funding” would be required to ease the “mental health emergency”.
