Statutes
| Published date | 01 July 1960 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2230.1960.tb00614.x |
| Author | J. E. Hall Williams |
| Date | 01 July 1960 |
STATUTES
THE
MENTAL
HEALTH
ACT,
1959
I.
The
Act and the
Criminal
Law
1.
General description
This is an extremely long Act, containing
154
sections and eight
schedules.
It
seeks to implement, with minor variations, the recom-
mendations of the Royal Commission
on
the Law Relating to
Mental Illness and Mental Deficiency,
1954-57.l
In
introducing the
Bill at the Second Reading in the House
of
Commons,
the Minister
of
Health described the existing laws relating to mental health as
"
complex, difficult, and
in
many respects out
of
date."
The Times
had described them as a jungle. The Act seeks to replace the
mosaic of outdated and complicated law and procedure with
a
streamlined and simplified system of law and procedure
in
keeping
with modern ideas
on
the subject.a
The aim
of
the Act is to emancipate the treatment of mental
disorder, both in the mental hospitals and
in
the community, from
the shackles
of
certification and compulsion
so
far as is consistent
with the protection of the public and the preservation
of
the liberty
of the subject. Two main principles inspire its provisions. One
is
to provide as much treatment as possible, both in hospital and
outside,
on
a purely voluntary basis; the other is to make proper
provision for the inevitable residuary category of cases where com-
pulsion is necessary in the interests of society
or
of the patients
themselves. The first principle is implemented by removing the
procedural formalities which at present attend the voluntary treat-
ment of patients, and the separate designation
of
mental hospitals
and mental deficiency hospitals,
so
that henceforth any general
hospital may receive patients suffering from any form
of
mental
disorder. The Board of Control, which previously presided over
the work of the mental hospitals, is to be dissolved,s and its func-
tions transferred to the Ministry of Health,
to
local a~thorities,~
and to the new mental health review tribunals which are to be set
up in each regi~n.~ Instead of the system
of
designated hospitals
and segregated treatment, henceforth mental health will be dealt
1
Cmnd, 169, May 1957. See review by Professor Norval Morris (1958) 21
M.L.R.
63.
2
Mr. Derek Walker-Smith, H.C. Parl. Deb. (5th ser.),
Vol.
598, col.
704
et
seq.,
3
8.
2.
4
Part
11
of
the Act deals with local authority services. Part
III
regulates mmtal
6
8.
3.
January
26,
1969.
nursing homes, residential homes, etc.
410
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