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ALLIANCE response to the Scottish Mental Health Law Review

  • Area of Work: The ALLIANCE
  • Type: News Item
  • Published: 27th May 2022
Scrabble pieces spelling out mental health

The ALLIANCE has responded to ideas and proposals for changes to mental health and incapacity law in Scotland.

The ALLIANCE has responded to phase 3 of the Scottish Mental Health Law Review’s consultation on changes to mental health and incapacity law in Scotland (this link will take you away from our website).

The opportunity to improve mental health law in Scotland is welcome, and reform should be based meaningfully on the experiences and expertise of people with lived experience, unpaid carers, and the third sector.

Our response welcomes the underpinning principles set out by the Review. However, it calls for more detail on many of the proposals, including on how they would work in practice. We also highlight the need for adequate funding, investment and resources to ensure the aims of the proposals are reflected at ground level.

Some of our overarching suggestions are outlined below:

  • Accessible communication is vital to ensuring people have access to care and support, when they need it. Relevant experts should be involved at the earliest opportunity, and a meaningful co-productive approach should be embedded, to ensure communication and information provision is accessible and inclusive for all.
  • Robust research and monitoring is needed to further understand the experiences of different population groups who may be subject to mental health law, and to identify barriers to effective implementation.
  • Effective accountability mechanisms for health boards, local authorities, and HSCPs are needed to ensure effective implementation of the proposals in the consultation paper.
  • Further action is needed to embed and promote supported decision making across Scotland. This should include building on approaches to promote and raise awareness of supported decision making options, offering training and capacity building for mental health practitioners to adopt a personal outcomes approach and to facilitate conversations with people about what matters to them.

Read our full response.

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