Mental Health Units (Use of Force) Bill

Will Quince Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Friday 3rd November 2017 Commons Chamber

[James Heappey]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. It is great on days like today when the House is in such violent agreement. The cameras really are a great addition for our police forces. They give transparency for those who want to complain about perceived unfair treatment. But they also give a protection as important as the stab vest, by reassuring police officers that they will have a video record of what they did.

[Will Quince (Colchester) (Con)]

I accept points from both sides of the House on body-worn cameras. The Bill makes it clear that the officer has to turn the device on as soon as practically possible from the point at which they are called. Does my hon. Friend think that it would be more practical to say that that should be at the point they attend the mental health unit, not the point at which they take the call? Is not that a little too onerous for the officers? I am just posing the question.

[James Heappey]

From discussions with local police constables and with the police commander, it seems that police officers have an instinct for when they are going into certain types of situation. One would imagine that if an officer were on the custody desk and heard that something required their intervention, they would obviously flick on their camera as a matter of drill while they were going down to the cell or wherever something was happening. That is assuming what we were just discussing—that it should be standard practice that somebody in those circumstances is always fully kitted out.

--- Later in debate ---

[Will Quince (Colchester) (Con)]

I add my congratulations to the hon. Member for Croydon North (Mr Reed), who is not in his place, on introducing the Bill and on the emotive and heartbreaking story that he shared with the House.

The Bill is an important part of a wider issue. We need to improve our approach to mental health. Without question, mental ill health carries a stigma and a taboo, and Members from both sides have played a huge role in tackling that. One of my passions is campaigning on baby loss, which has a similar stigma and taboo attached to it. We do not talk enough about it, and that has led many people to stay silent. If we are to tackle the stigma and taboo, we have to raise these issues as much as possible and ensure that people feel able to talk about them openly. There is no greater place to do so than on the Floor of the House of Commons Chamber.

The Mental Health Act has remained unchanged since it was first published in 1983, and many consider it to be no longer fit for purpose. As a comparison, when the legislation was introduced, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, which is known as the DSM, existed in its third edition. Since then, it has undergone multiple revisions, and it is now in its fifth edition. The research into mental health conditions and our understanding of them have developed, particularly over the last three and a half decades, but our legislation has not changed. That is not good enough.

The Bill is one important step among many towards ensuring that people with mental health conditions are treated appropriately. I want to make it clear that there will be circumstances in which restraint is required in mental health units. That is, sadly, inevitable. Staff in such units have an incredibly challenging job. We would all agree, however, that restraint should be the last resort, not the first. I pay tribute to Mind, which launched its campaign in 2011 to reduce the use of restraint in healthcare settings. It has made fantastic progress so far.

In 2014, the coalition Government published guidance in this area following investigations into abuses at Winterbourne View hospital and a report published by Mind, which found that restrictive interventions were not being used as a last resort. The guidance made it clear that staff must use such actions only if they represent the least restrictive option for meeting the immediate need. The guidance also made it clear that staff must not deliberately restrict people in such a way as to impact on their airway, breathing or circulation. That includes face-down restraint on any surface, not just on the floor.

I continue in the spirit of the coalition Government by paying tribute, as my friend the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) has done—she is currently looking at her phone on the other side of the Chamber, and I cannot attract her attention—to the right hon. Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb) for the work that he did as a Minister. I know that this is an issue that he cares deeply about. I know that the right hon. Gentleman is not in the Chamber at the moment, but I certainly want to put that on the record—the hon. Lady still has not realised that I am complimenting her colleague—because he did a huge amount of work in this area.

Later in 2015, the Mental Health Act 1983 code of practice was revised, and NICE updated its guidance on violence and aggression, both of which put the emphasis on prevention and advised against the use of prone restraints. What all this recognised is that the solution is not to blame the staff, but to give them the skills and confidence to deal with some incredibly challenging situations.

In September, I visited the Lakes mental health unit in Colchester to see at first hand what a mental health unit is like. I initially had a brief meeting with senior managers, including Sally Morris, the chief executive of the Essex Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust—the names of NHS trusts always seem to be a bit of a mouthful—which manages the Lakes unit in my constituency. I was then given a tour of Ardleigh ward and Gosfield ward, and we discussed many issues. Restraint was not one of the issues we discussed, but following the debate on this extremely important Bill—the hon. Member for Croydon North, who introduced it, is now in his place—I will definitely be asking questions about the use of restraint in that unit.

I support what the Bill is seeking to achieve on training, especially as set out in clause 5(1). In many ways, it strikes me as remarkable that frontline staff would not already be given such programmes, but this is a good way of ensuring that staff, particularly new staff, are aware of best practice and guidance on the use of force. I suggest, however, that the Committee looks at whether the provision should be wider than just induction, so that existing members of staff are also given this training. In any workplace environment, it is incredibly important for people to be given refreshers to ensure that training remains fresh and at the front of their mind.

Another area I want to touch on is the mandating of body cameras for any police officer who attends a mental health unit. A number of colleagues have already raised this issue, but I want to focus on one particular area. It is important to mention from the outset that the use of body-worn cameras is ultimately a decision for local police and crime commissioners. Police forces are at different stages in this process: some are just investing now; and others are looking at new equipment, because they have used body-worn cameras for some time and are now in the second phase of procurement.

I suggest—I mentioned this in an intervention on my hon. Friend the Member for Wells (James Heappey)—that clause 13(2)(a) is perhaps a little too eager in expecting officers to turn on their cameras. It states:

“The police officer must ensure that his or her body camera is recording…from as soon as reasonably practicable after the officer receives the request to attend the mental health unit”.

That might be looked at in Committee, because the focus should perhaps be on ensuring that there is a recording of their attending the mental health unit, rather than from the point at which they get such a request.

[Kevin Foster]

My hon. Friend is making some very interesting points. Does he agree that the presumption is that an officer who is on duty and using a body-worn camera should have it switched on? Only when an officer has a specific reason to turn it off—for example, when dealing with a vulnerable witness who is uncomfortable talking while the camera is on—should it be switched off.

[Will Quince]

My hon. Friend raises a very good point. I come back to what I said earlier about body-worn cameras, which is that police forces are at different stages in the evolution of these pieces of kit. Their cameras have different battery lives and different download capabilities—some recordings take several hours to download, but more modern functionality means that that can be done quite quickly—so it depends where police forces are with their procurement and how long they have had the equipment. I totally agree with him, however, that the presumption is that this piece of equipment should be on, and that is and should certainly be standard practice for newer cameras.

[Mrs Murray]

My hon. Friend mentions a point I was about to raise. A battery could expire or there could be a software glitch, so maybe the clause needs to be tweaked in Committee. I wonder whether the hon. Member for Croydon North will consider that carefully if the Bill reaches the Committee stage.

[Will Quince]

My hon. Friend raises a very good point. I think we are all largely in agreement about the use of body-worn cameras, and I think we all think they are an excellent evolution in policing that protects both the public and police officers. I hope the hon. Member for Croydon North does consider that carefully in Committee, working with senior police officers who use the equipment on the ground to work out how the proposed legislation should be worded to ensure it is exactly right on this point.

Essex police works in partnership with the NHS in a county-wide street triage programme that helps to provide the best possible care to people with mental health issues. This trailblazing idea works brilliantly and I will come on to mention some of the statistics relating to it. Four street triage cars, staffed by trained officers and mental health professionals from the South Essex Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust and the North Essex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust, are available to Essex police. They operate seven days a week, from between 10 am and 2 am, and are based in Harlow, Colchester, Basildon and Rochford. Officers and mental health professionals attend incidents across the county if an individual is thought to be suffering a mental health crisis and is in urgent need of support or an intervention. The person is assessed by the officers and the mental health professional, who then gets them the assistance they need if it is appropriate to do so.

The programme follows the success of a four-month pilot that ran three nights a week. During that time, 269 individuals were assessed, of whom 11 were required to be detained under the Mental Health Act 1983. Others were referred to the appropriate services and given guidance from the mental health professional who was present. This initiative has been funded by the police and crime commissioner. The scheme has proved instrumental in reducing, by nearly a quarter, the number of people across Essex detained unnecessarily by the police under section 136 of the Mental Health Act 1983. It has also ensured that those with acute vulnerability are given the care and support they need.

In summary, I very much welcome the Bill. It will ensure that staff working in mental health units are given the training that will enable them to give patients the best possible level of care; training that I believe, having met staff at The Lakes mental health unit, they want to receive. There are a couple of areas in the Bill that need tweaking—I would be very happy to work with the hon. Member for Croydon North in Committee—but nothing should stop it from being given a Second Reading. I will be supporting the Bill.

Mental Health Units (Use of Force) Bill

Will Quince Excerpts

Report stage: House of Commons
Friday 15th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Philip Davies]

I do not believe the hon. Lady has been present throughout the debate; had she been, she would have appreciated that we all support the Bill. The hon. Member for Croydon North supports the Bill in its current form, but it has become apparent during the debate that he actually agrees that it would be improved by the inclusion of amendments 11 and 12. It is a question not of whether we support the Bill—we all support it—but of whether we get a Bill that is fit for purpose, and if we pass the best possible Bill. The point is that once these provisions have passed through the House, that will be it: the Bill will move off the House’s agenda, and we will not have another chance to do the great things that the hon. Gentleman is trying to achieve. We have to get it right this time, because otherwise the opportunity will pass. Those two absolutely key bits of training to prevent what happened to Mr Lewis from happening to other people need to be provided for in the Bill. To be perfectly honest, it is blindingly obvious to anybody that they need to be in the Bill.

[Will Quince (Colchester) (Con)]

Are we not in danger of allowing the perfect to be the enemy of the good?

[Philip Davies]

On that basis, my hon. Friend is basically saying, “Let’s get a Bill with a nice title, with any old nice-sounding provisions in it, and bang it on to the statute book without any scrutiny whatsoever.” The whole point of Report is to try to improve Bills. I am still confident that people will decide that what I am saying is sensible, because the amendments are sensible improvements to the Bill. It is not my fault that the Government cannot carry out their decision making in time. To address the point raised by the hon. Member for Croydon Central (Sarah Jones), the whole point of requiring amendments to be tabled by Tuesday evening prior to their being debated on Friday is to give people time to consider them.