Public Repository for Briefs regarding Reform of the Mental Health Act

On 13 January 2021, the government issued a white paper, ‘Reforming the Mental Health Act’, and commenced a public consultation that will remain open until 21 April 2021.  The Department of Health will publish an overall analysis of the submissions to that consultation, but it will not publish the submissions themselves – and that is where we come in. To encourage and facilitate debate, MDLN (with the support of the Institute of Mental Health) is providing a public repository for responses.  This runs parallel to the government’s submission mechanism, and there is no obligation to submit your response here if you do not wish to.  Equally, though, this repository IS meant to be restricted to responses that HAVE been submitted to the government. 

Please – if you have not submitted to the government, do not put your comments into this repository (but you might of course want to submit a post to our blog, which will also be discussing the white paper and reactions to it).

We are happy to consider including responses anonymously in appropriate circumstances (eg., where responses contain personal information).

Please note that this submitting to this repository does NOT mean that your response has been submitted to the government – the processes are separate, but submissions to government are now closed.

Reforming the Mental Health Act: a public response

pdfResponse from The Royal College of Nursing

pdfPhil Fennell, Professor Emeritus of Mental Health and Mental Capacity Law at Cardiff University

pdfResponse from VoiceAbility

The National Survivor User Network (NSUN) published their response to the consultation on their website.

pdfResponse from Mind 

pdfResponse from Mind Cymru

pdfResponse from Adferiad Recovery

pdfYmateb gan Adferiad Recovery

pdf Sarah Markham, Visiting Researcher, King's College London

Copyright in the responses remains with the author of the response.

If you would like your response to be available to the public on this page then please email your submission to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. for the Institute of Mental Health.