Apart from the common law, the Mental Health Act 1983 and the Mental Health (Patients in the Community) Act 1995 provide the principal pieces of legislation governing mental health services and treatment.
When the 1983 Act was passed it reflected the then current situation which was that most people with chronic or acute mental illnesses were still cared for in hospitals. This is no longer the case, because a large number of people with diagnoses of mental disorder now live in the community.
The main Act (MHA) covers compulsory admission to hospital, detention, treatment, and aftercare, although the vast majority of admissions to hospital are voluntary. Some 25,000 compulsory admissions are made every year, however. Through amendment by the 1995 Act, the current MHA now covers compulsory supervision in the community through supervision orders. It also governs the transfer arrangements between the criminal courts and hospitals.
The 1983 Act also contains the regime of guardianship, as a form of authority which stops short of detention, in support of service provision for those in the community.
The main Act is supplemented by government guidance in the form of a Code of Practice which was last revised in late 1998. The status of this document is often thought to be equivalent to a law, but it is not. Its existence is required by the Act itself (see s118) but that section makes clear that its contents are guidance to professionals and only guidance, albeit entitled to very great respect, having been based on consultation amongst many agencies, including the Mental Health Act Commission. But the predecessor to the latest issue was criticised in the House of Lords in L v Bournewood as being, in part, simply wrong in law.
The Code also gives guidance about ethnic monitoring, confidentiality, Human Rights, NHS complaints procedures, etc. The Code exhorts local authorities to issue their own guidance to employees in the mental health field, covering, for instance
the procedure to follow when a Nearest Relative requests an assessment from the authority under s13(4) MHA
joint policy agreed with Health Authorities, Trusts and the local Police on use of the police power to remove a person to a place of safety under s136 MHA
use of powers of entry under s135 MHA
policy and procedures on guardianship
policies on the use of seclusion and restraint and locks and other devices within hospital or other facilities (see human rights)
agreed local arrangements with the police when persons subject to guardianship go absent without leave and are liable to be returned under s18 MHA
written policies on visiting of patients by children
procedures for arranging aftercare for patients subject to supervision orders under s25A MHA
Local authorities should therefore have copies of these policies and we cannot think of any reason why they should not be disclosed to members of the public.