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Mental Health Bill [HL]

My Lords, Amendment No. 12 demonstrates how the Government are broadening the field in this legislation in respect of mental disorder and medical treatment. In regard to the problems with which the legislation is trying to deal, the field has been broadened beyond the effect on the person himself. Psychiatrists, psychologists and other healthcare professionals are being asked to address the problems of society, which were set out by the noble Lord, Lord Soley. The legislation is not intended to deal with people who suffer from particular kinds of personality disorder, such as borderline personality disorder, to which the noble Baroness, Lady Royall of Blaisdon, referred—that term has come into psychiatry relatively recently; that is, in the past 25 to 30 years. It is not a question of whether treatment is available; treatment is available on the basis of whether resources are available, not on the basis of whether there is a Mental Health Act. The Act is there for the compulsion of patients. The kind of personality disorder being adverted to is not where a person has a conflict inside himself, is deeply troubled and wants help; it is where a person does not have a conflict inside himself but has a conflict with society, does not seek treatment because he is not aware of any problem and therefore does not try to deal with it, but other people around him suffer from the effects. The criminal law is there to deal with him if he breaks the law and the contract each of us has as a citizen with the rest of the community. That is perfectly appropriate, but what is not appropriate is to provide in a Mental Health Act that the effects of a person’s actions on other people should be the reason for the treatment meted out to him. It would not be treatment through medication because the only medication that would be of any value would dope him to the point that he did not know what was going on but would not have any therapeutic benefit. The noble Earl, Lord Howe, is right that the key words in Amendment No. 12 are the last two: ““or effects””. Effects on whom? The effects on the person himself or the effects on society? In other words, if the person’s behaviour does not trouble him, but troubles the rest of society, it should be dealt with not under the criminal law but under mental health legislation, and doctors, psychologists and nurses should cope with it. That is the problem. That is why Amendment No. 7 refers to preventing, "““a deterioration in his condition””." The key question is whether we are asking psychiatrists, psychologists and nurses to deal with society’s problems or to deal with the problems that patients have inside themselves that cause them difficulties. That is their role. They have a role, but it is not primarily the role of healthcare professionals to be social policemen.