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Mental Health Bill [HL]

I had not planned to speak to this amendment but wish to make one point. I was involved in the development of the 1983 Act during its passage through Parliament. At that time, we assumed that people would spend the period that we are talking about in hospital while under treatment. Now it is important to consider the interconnection between the different clauses of this Bill. We are now talking about people being given community treatment orders; certainly in my trust in east London, many people may remain in hospital for quite a brief period. I ask the Minister to consider what it would feel like to be a patient who had been given a cluster of treatments that have these very unpleasant side effects and then be placed on a community treatment order, possibly by someone who is not even a doctor, left on the treatments without access to a second opinion, and without the day-by-day access to doctors whereby one could say, ““Look, doctor, I feel dreadful; all sorts of horrible things are happening to me””. At least you are under surveillance in hospital. That would not be the case if you were in the community. I ask the Minister carefully to consider the implications of that if community treatment orders are brought in.