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Mental Health Bill [Lords]

I really need to go through these provisions and address some of the points that the hon. Lady has herself raised. We believe that these amendments will clarify issues that we have discussed with clinicians and with members of the new mental health coalition who pressed for them, so I hope that hon. Members will not press their other amendments but will acknowledge that we must not limit the ability of clinicians or restrict any further supervised community treatment. It is all about getting treatment to people when they need it, and protecting patients and the public from harm. As for the amendments that deal with children and supervised community treatment, we debated them fully in Committee, and although we are fully sympathetic to the spirit behind them, we really do not believe that they are necessary, given the package of safeguards that already exists for both adults and children on SCT. Amendments Nos. 97, 98 and 99 would appear to prevent the treatment in emergencies in the community of children who lack competence. In practice, that would mean that in life-threatening situations, a clinician would not be able to treat a patient until they were brought back to hospital. A delay in treatment could spell disaster, so we must reject the proposals. They would mean that clinicians could not treat patients in difficult situations. Amendments Nos. 75 to 78, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon, attempt to prescribe on the face of the legislation what is meant by ““competence””. We believe that we have enough guidance to meet some of the concerns raised by my hon. Friend. The problem with amendment No. 92 and new clauses 13 and 14 is that they would affect the use of SCT in practice. In attempting to deal with a concern about the review of medication by a second opinion appointed doctor, the proposals would, in practice, prevent a patient from being treated without delay on recall to hospital, and would thus render recall useless. That is unacceptable.