Review of Mental Health Bill after knife killing
John Reid, the Secretary of State for Health, has ordered a review of proposed changes to the law covering mental patients after the case of John Barrett, the paranoid schizophrenic who released himself from care and stabbed a banker to death in a London park.
Changes to the draft Mental Health Bill could be introduced to give doctors greater powers to detain patients such as Barrett who volunteer for treatment for mental illness and then discharge themselves.
The case raised far-reaching questions, reported in The Independent on Saturday, about whether the care in the community system for treating mentally ill patients was working, and whether it needed a fundamental overhaul.
Mr Reid revealed yesterday that he was asking the same far-reaching questions. A routine "local" inquiry has been ordered by health officials into alleged failures by doctors to pick up the warning signs before Barrett, 42, discharged himself and stabbed Denis Finnegan, 50, as he cycled through Richmond Park last September.
Mr Reid has also ordered his officials to review the national implications for care in the community after Barrett pleaded guilty to manslaughter in court on Friday on grounds of diminished responsibility.
"I don't want to prejudge this, but some of the matters relating to this that I have read about are worrying," he said on BBC1's The Politics Show.
"I have asked for an urgent report to be compiled. I want the local strategic health authority to carry out an independent inquiry, not only into the local implications but some of the national implications. On face value there are difficult questions that have to be asked."
The Independent has learnt that Mr Reid will focus on the limited powers of doctors to detain voluntary patients. He is keen to strengthen those powers if the review of the Barrett case recommends it.
The case goes to the heart of the problems encountered by the Government with its Mental Health Bill, which ran into enormous opposition from mental health groups when it was unveiled in 2002. The Bill tried to close a loophole in the law which the former home secretary Jack Straw believed had led to the release of Michael Stone before he killed Lin Russell and her daughter Megan in a hammer attack in Kent in 1996. Stone was left free to commit the murder because his severe personality disorder was considered untreatable. It was estimated there were more than 600 similar, dangerous cases in Britain and the first draft of the Bill proposed new powers to detain such people. But the proposals were watered down after an outcry from mental health professionals, charities and patients.
A government source said yesterday the difficulty remained over the need to strike the right balance between protecting the public and caring for the patient. The Bill is still in draft form, and changes resulting from the Barrett case could be introduced after the election.
Despite Barrett's long history of mental illness and his violent past, doctors at Springfield Hospital in Tooting, south London, had no power to keep him against his will and he was allowed to wander the hospital complex unescorted. Instead, he walked out and the following day stabbed Mr Finnegan to death.
Changes to the draft Mental Health Bill could be introduced to give doctors greater powers to detain patients such as Barrett who volunteer for treatment for mental illness and then discharge themselves.
The case raised far-reaching questions, reported in The Independent on Saturday, about whether the care in the community system for treating mentally ill patients was working, and whether it needed a fundamental overhaul.
Mr Reid revealed yesterday that he was asking the same far-reaching questions. A routine "local" inquiry has been ordered by health officials into alleged failures by doctors to pick up the warning signs before Barrett, 42, discharged himself and stabbed Denis Finnegan, 50, as he cycled through Richmond Park last September.
Mr Reid has also ordered his officials to review the national implications for care in the community after Barrett pleaded guilty to manslaughter in court on Friday on grounds of diminished responsibility.
"I don't want to prejudge this, but some of the matters relating to this that I have read about are worrying," he said on BBC1's The Politics Show.
"I have asked for an urgent report to be compiled. I want the local strategic health authority to carry out an independent inquiry, not only into the local implications but some of the national implications. On face value there are difficult questions that have to be asked."
The Independent has learnt that Mr Reid will focus on the limited powers of doctors to detain voluntary patients. He is keen to strengthen those powers if the review of the Barrett case recommends it.
The case goes to the heart of the problems encountered by the Government with its Mental Health Bill, which ran into enormous opposition from mental health groups when it was unveiled in 2002. The Bill tried to close a loophole in the law which the former home secretary Jack Straw believed had led to the release of Michael Stone before he killed Lin Russell and her daughter Megan in a hammer attack in Kent in 1996. Stone was left free to commit the murder because his severe personality disorder was considered untreatable. It was estimated there were more than 600 similar, dangerous cases in Britain and the first draft of the Bill proposed new powers to detain such people. But the proposals were watered down after an outcry from mental health professionals, charities and patients.
A government source said yesterday the difficulty remained over the need to strike the right balance between protecting the public and caring for the patient. The Bill is still in draft form, and changes resulting from the Barrett case could be introduced after the election.
Despite Barrett's long history of mental illness and his violent past, doctors at Springfield Hospital in Tooting, south London, had no power to keep him against his will and he was allowed to wander the hospital complex unescorted. Instead, he walked out and the following day stabbed Mr Finnegan to death.
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/health_medical/story.jsp?story=615452
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