Ministers retreat on law to lock up mental patients

They have agreed to compromise with opponents of the Mental Health Bill, which the Government has been trying to get into law for nine years.

The Bill is designed to make it easier to section people with mental health problems if they have not committed an offence but are deemed a risk to the public.

It has always faced opposition in Parliament over concerns about the civil liberties of potential offenders.

But campaigners for victims' rights say the compromise will mean there will still be a loophole in the law allowing some dangerous patients to avoid treatment, putting members of the public at risk.

On Wednesday health minister Rosie Winterton announced that ministers were looking closely' at an amendment which would put limits on whether dangerous patients could be sectioned.

The climbdown is over the notion of treatability'. Existing mental health legislation, which goes back to 1983, says people should be sectioned only if their condition is considered treatable and that locking them up will help them.

But this means it is very hard to section people with severe psychological problems, which are seen as being difficult to treat.

The Government wanted to repeal the treatability' clause but was defeated in the Lords earlier this year.

Now ministers are considering an amendment from backbench MP Chris Bryant which would be a compromise between the two positions.

It would permit enforced treatment if it is intended to alleviate a condition or prevent it from getting worse'.

But Michael Howlett, director of the Zito Trust, said: The treatability loophole has allowed the medical profession to stop people from accessing NHS services because they say they haven't got any treatments that can help them.

All the Government is doing is replacing the old loophole with another one, and that will leave us with the same problem.

We need to make sure these people get treatment – otherwise they will end up in prison.'

Ministers also announced they would climb down on controversial powers to allow doctors to set restrictions on the movement of mental health patients.

They will amend clauses in the bill to water down community treatment orders, which have been dubbed psychiatric ASBOs' because they would have allowed doctors to ban patients from certain places.

CTOs are designed to be used by doctors to force mentally-ill offenders to attend appointments and take their medication after release.

Opponents, backed by Conservative leader David Cameron, argued this would give doctors free rein to restrict an individual's behaviour or lifestyle, such as banning them from going to the pub. The changes to CTOs rule this out.

The shake-up of the law was driven by Michael Stone's 1998 conviction for the murders of Lin and Megan Russell. Around 55 murders a year are committed by mental health patients.