§ Mr. Lomasasked the Secretary of State for Social Services what definition of the term mental illness is used by his Department.
§ Mr. MoyleMental illness is one of the forms of mental disorder recognised in the Mental Health Act 1959, but is not defined in the Act. The White Paper "Review of the Mental Health. Act 1959"—Cmnd. 7320—published recently, proposes in paragraph 1.17 that mental illness should remain undefined. In the absence of such a definition it would fall to the courts to interpret the term if necessary, in the light of medical evidence.
Outside of the provisions of that Act, the term "mental illness" may be used 203W in the NHS in a variety of circumstances, but again there are no fixed definitions: illness of this and other sorts is often a matter of degree. For example, people in unhappy circumstances, such as the bereaved, may for a time be not merely unhappy but consequently suffering from some symptoms of the psychiatric illness called reactive depression—for example, impaired concentration; but most will carry on without medical assistance. If, in such circumstances, a general medical practitioner recommends some time off work, he could accurately use the description "mental illness", on the form, as he could accurately describe a cold as "respiratory illness", but because of the general fear of the term—which is a realistic fear only in the case of a few serious illnesses—the term is often avoided in such contexts.
The Department's statistics in general follow the classifications of the WHO International Classification of Diseases.