Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what is the timetable for his Department to respond to the recommendations of the Independent Review of the Mental Health Act.

We welcome the publication of final report of the independent review of the Mental Health Act 1983, which was commissioned by the Prime Minister.

The Government will consider the report and its recommendations in detail and respond in due course. We remain committed to reforming mental health law and have committed to develop and bring forward legislation when parliamentary time allows.

We have already accepted two of the recommendations of the review; the establishment of new statutory advance choice documents, so that people’s wishes and preferences carry far more legal weight, and the creation of a new role of ‘nominated person’ to be chosen by the patient to replace the current nearest relative provisions. This will support the review’s overall purpose of increasing patient rights and improving the way the Act works for people.