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Mental Health Bill [HL]

I support everything that the noble Earl, Lord Howe, said and simply add one other piece of evidence from the many we had in support of this amendment. The National Patient Safety Agency’s report, ““Building a Memory””, records some instances where the drugs have seemed somewhat eccentric. We will be talking about that issue later on, but the report particularly suggests as the sort of things where people felt uncomfortable with the drugs that they were given such examples as psychotropic drugs prescribed above the normal amount in the formulary and the use of anti-epileptic drugs as mood stabilisers. The quotation that we got about being drugged up all the time is going to resonate in our ears for a long time. Reducing the period from three months to 28 days is not a major thing for the Government to do. It would make a huge difference to how patients feel in terms of safety. They would be more likely to seek treatment if they did not feel that, compulsorily, they might be given for three months treatment that they actively dislike and that makes them feel very unpleasant. I hope that the Minister will see reason in this amendment and in those grouped with it, and perhaps see whether he can do something.