HC Deb 05 May 1959 vol 605 cc329-31

9.0 p.m.

Mr. Walker-Smith

I beg to move, in page 80, line 12, to leave out from "detained" to end of line 29 and insert: under this Act, the tribunal may in any case direct that the patient be discharged, and shall so direct if they are satisfied—

  1. (a) that he is not then suffering from mental illness, psychopathic disorder, subnormality or severe subnormality; or
  2. (b) that it is not necessary in the interests of the patient's health or safety or for the protection of other persons that the patient should continue to be liable to be detained; Or
  3. (c) in the case of an application under subsection (3) of section forty-four or subsection (4) of section forty-eight of this Act, that the patient, if released, would not be likely to act in a manner dangerous to other persons or to himself.
(2) Where application is made to a Mental Health Review Tribunal by or in respect of a patient who is subject to guardianship under this Act, the tribunal may in any case direct that the patient be discharged, and shall so direct if they are satisfied—
  1. (a) that he is not then suffering from mental illness, psychopathic disorder, subnormality or severe subnormality; or
  2. (b)that it is not necessary in the interests of the patient, or for the protection of other persons, that the patient should remain under such guardianship.
 This is mainly a drafting Amendment, though it has one alteration of substance. Clause 122 prescribes the powers of mental health review tribunals to discharge patients after considering an application or reference in regard to them. It prescribes criteria on which the tribunal must be satisfied before it may discharge a patient.

Some rewording of the Clause is necessary, following Amendments which we made in Committee, in particular in regard to the criterion of the "interests of the patient's health or safety". Lines 24 and 25 are appropriate for patients detained in hospital but not for patients under guardianship, where the criterion is simply to be "the interests of the patient". The words "health or safety" were introduced by Amendment in Committee with hospital cases in mind, but no consequential Amendment was made to put right the criterion for guardianship cases.

In order to meet this need we have redrafted subsection (1) and divided it into two subsections, dealing separately with hospitals and guardianship. At the same time we have taken the opportunity to improve the wording and also to introduce the one change of substance to which I referred and which I hope will commend itself to the House.

The Clause as it stands in the Bill requires a tribunal to discharge when satisfied on the criteria, which is, of course, quite proper, but it does not permit it discretionally to discharge in other circumstances. In the Amendment, we propose to give the tribunal discretion to discharge in any case, and to require it to discharge if it is satisfied in respect of the criteria which are specified in the Bill. I think that is the right approach, because the other people who have the power to discharge, that is to say, the nearest relative, the hospital managers, the responsible medical officer and so on, have complete discretion to discharge if they think fit. So it is right that these tribunals, which we are carefully constituting with balanced representation and which have judicial or quasi-judicial functions to perform, should not be at a disadvantage, and that, in addition to having a duty to discharge when satisfied of the criteria, should have a discretion to discharge in any case.

Mr. Blenkinsop

We are glad to have had the explanation just given by the right hon. and learned Gentleman. I think he will appreciate that we have been in some difficulty—of which we make no complaint—because many of the Amendments appeared on the Notice Paper only a short while before this stage of the Bill began, and therefore it has not been easy for us to cover as fully as we would have wished the voluminous series of Amendments, which we have received with so much gratitude to the right hon. and learned Gentleman.

We welcome the explanation that he has given and we fully agree that it is desirable to make the Amendments which he mentioned, as well as to carry out the rewording consequential on the earlier decisions we reached.

Amendment agreed to.

Further Amendment made: In page 80, line 30, leave out "any such application is made" and insert: application is made to a Mental Health Review Tribunal under any provision of this Act".—[Mr. Walker-Smith.]