Comprehensive Report on Mental Health Act and Children Act Legislation

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of two key pieces of healthcare legislation in the United Kingdom: the Mental Health Act 1983 and the Children Act 1989. The report begins by outlining the purpose, implementation, and controversies associated with the Mental Health Act, including the Bourne Wood case, and its role in providing care for individuals with mental health complications. It then explores the Children Act, its aim to safeguard children, and the controversies surrounding its effectiveness, referencing the Baby P case as a pivotal example. The report highlights the importance of these acts for healthcare professionals, emphasizing their role in ethical and legally compliant care processes, and their significance in promoting the well-being of both mental health patients and children. The analysis covers legislative amendments, government responses to critical situations, and the acts' impact on the healthcare landscape.

Running head: HEALTHCARE ASSIGNMENT
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Name of the student
Name of the university
Author note

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The Mental Health Act 1983
A.
The Mental Health Act 1983 is the legislation for the United Kingdom and has been
reviewed last in 2007 so that its application in England and Wales could be conducted. This
act provide the consumers with rights such as right of conduction of assessment and treatment
in health care facility, providing pathway to the civilians or criminals so that they could avail
their mental health treatment (Mind.org.uk 2019). The primary purpose of this act is to
provide the health care professionals with a criterion that would help them to understand the
detention level, assessment and development abilities so that treatment and other important
aspects could be identified effectively.
B.
One of the primary reason due to which this process was implemented in the care
process and was passed by the parliament was the inability of the health care professionals to
understand the level after which the patients affected with mental health complications need
to be detained (Mind.org.uk 2019). Hence, to develop the abilities and to understand the
importance of consent and mental health detention, the parliament passed the Mental Health
Act 1983 in the United Kingdom’s parliament so that the patients could be provided with
effective care and treatment prospect (Mind.org.uk 2019).
C.
While discussing about the mental health act and its implementation in the mental
health facilities, the controversies associated with this act should be discussed and analysed
so that the critical nature of the process could be identified (Oram et al. 2019). One of the
primary controversy associated with this process was the replacement act that was planned by

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the government in the 2007 amendment as it was seen that the changes that was implemented
by the government was harsh and draconian. The population rejected this law and hence the
government had to bring amendment to the existing law and hence, this was the complicated
situation that happened in the development and amendment of the law because of the
controversial nature of the process (Singh et al. 2017).
D.
The mental health act is the only act which is available in the mental healthcare
facilities of United Kingdom so that they could provide the patients with effective care in the
mental health treatment facilities (Mind.org.uk 2019). The government and health care
ministry tried to develop and implement a parallel regulation for its implementation in the
care process however, it was seen that the population rejected the mental health act because
of its draconian nature. Hence, due to this, the government did not aim to develop any other
mental health care regulations and develop processes associated with regulation amendments
so that critical care could be provided to the patients involved in the care process
(Mind.org.uk 2019). This was an important step for the government as development of new
law could have made the mental health act more applicable in the modern day complications.
However, the amendments that were implemented upon this legislation also helped to clear
the confusions associated with the processes and help the professionals to help the patients to
overcome their mental health complications (Mind.org.uk 2019).
E.
The Bourne wood was observed in the year 2009 in which it was seen that people who
lacked capacity, or are unable to take decision for them were unable to receive effective care
for themselves and hence their mental health condition affected (Davidson 2016). In such
condition, the government implemented a new facility so that all these complications could

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be eliminated and the patients could be provided with effective care. Hence, to safe guard
patients from such critical conditions, the Bourne wood was implemented in the care process
so that these patients could be provided with critical care (Perry, Singh and White 2018).
This therefore, helped the mental health care professionals with abilities so that their critical
conditions could help them to take effective decisions for their authorisation and challenging
situations. This provided relief to those patients that are unable to provide any consent for
their treatment and provided them with the facilities so that their treatment could be
continued and helped them to overcome their mental health complications (Davidson 2016).
F.
As a mental health care professional, it is an important act for conduction of an
ethically and legally complied care process. These legislations would help me as a care
professional to understand the steps I would be taking for an effective care process and they
would be able to achieve improved health outcome for their wellbeing. Hence, as a nursing
care professional, understanding the details and complications associated with these mental
health complications is an important aspect which should be known so that I could carry out
the care process effectively.
The Children Act 1989
A.
The Children Act 1989 is a legislation that has been developed for safeguarding the
issues and complications associated with children and taking care of their authorities, courts,
parents, so that they could help these children to understand their complications and their
safeguarding (Ryan 2019). This act mentions safeguarding of children in the sense that these
processes should be conducted so that the rights and ethical complications children and help
them to overcome or protect them from the mental and physical abuses. In this act, the

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process has developed abilities so that their safeguarding could help patients of specific
complications (Frost and Mills 2019). The primary idea of this system and this regulation is
the concept is the fact that children are best cared at their home and within their families and
hence, in this process it is mentioned that the act helps the family members or the social
facilities so that these children could be provided with abilities for their healthy growth and
development (Slater and Barton 2016).
B.
The increased rate of crimes and abuses against children could be the primary reason
due to which this process was developed and implemented so that the government could help
them to overcome their complications and overcome their mental health complications. These
are the processes that could help the population so that they could grow on their own
normalcy and could be protective from these abuses and complications and could lead an
effective life. Hence, to develop that it is important to understand that parenting
responsibilities could be shared to more than one parent. Hence this process was implemented
by the government so that they could provide the responsibility of the children to one of the
parent involved in the care process and this parent or local guardian would be decided by the
court for the proper care of the children (Slater and Barton 2016).
C.
One of the primary controversies associated with the child care act 1989 is the
inability of this act to provide safety or to safeguard children that are not associated with the
carer (Brown et al. 2019). In the year 2000, there were multiple situations that highlighted to
the fact that the government is unable to provide the parents with the abilities so that they
could help their children to be protected from any abuse. Further, it was also highlighted that
there are multiple loopholes in the children act 1989 due to which the people that was

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allegedly associated with the complications, were able to free themselves die to the lack in
the legislations. Hence, this could be termed as the loophole and hence, there were multiple
controversies that were published or rumoured around to provide the children with a safe
environment and help them to gain abilities to overcome their physical and mental
complications (Slater and Barton 2016).
D.
The children act 1989 was implemented in the United Kingdom in the year 1989 and
after then there are no such amendments that were carried out to help the law to be
implemented and provide the associated children with abilities to be protected from critical
complications. As the government provided the Court with the opportunity to select in which
case these processes need to be followed and to which parent the responsibility of the
children would be given, it is mentioned that these was the primary aim and objective of the
government and they chose this legislative way to safeguard the rights of the children
associated with safety and security (Brown et al. 2019). Hence there is no such legislation
developed or amended after that and hence it is important to develop a critical safety and
security issues.
E and F.
The case of Baby P it was seen that a person namely Steven Barker and his alleged
brother Jason Owen was convicted for raping a 17 month old boy Peter Connelly in north
London in 2007 and this was the crime that helped the legislative bodies and the government
to focus upon the crimes that are affecting children and their security (Popple 2015). In this
case the child died after his abuse and hence a strong and secure policy was developed to
safeguard the regulation for the children of UK to help their rights and security could be
protected (Shoesmith 2016). Hence, it was important for the healthcare facilities and the

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legislative authorities so that they could help each other’s to protect the children in the care
process. This is an important act for the healthcare professionals as it will help them to
understand the importance of the care process and the rights associated with the children
could be provided to them for their holistic growth and development (Popple 2015).

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References
Brown, E., Bullock, R., Hobson, C. and Little, M., 2019. Making residential care work:
structure and culture in children's homes. Ashgate.
Davidson, L., 2016. Capacity to consent to or refuse psychiatric treatment: an analysis of
South African and UK law. South African Journal on Human Rights, 32(3), pp.457-489.
Frost, N. and Mills, S., 2019. Understanding residential child care. Routledge.
Mind.org.uk 2019. Mental Health Act 1983 | Mind, the mental health charity - help for
mental health problems. [online] Mind.org.uk. Available at:
https://www.mind.org.uk/information-support/legal-rights/mental-health-act-1983/ [Accessed
28 Dec. 2019].
Oram, S., Colling, C., Pritchard, M., Khondoker, M., de Freitas, D.F., Ter-Minassian, L.,
Downs, J., Lloyd-Evans, B., Markham, S., Werbeloff, N. and Chang, C.K., 2019. Patterns of
use of the Mental Health Act 1983, from 2007–2008 to 2016–2017, in two major London
secondary mental healthcare providers. BJPsych open, 5(6).
Perry, B.I., Singh, S.P. and White, D.H., 2018. Capacity assessment and information
provision for voluntary psychiatric patients: a service evaluation in a UK NHS
Trust. International Journal of Mental Health and Capacity Law, 2016(22), pp.107-118.
Popple, K., 2015. The Story of Baby P: Setting the Record Straight.
Ryan, M., 2019. The Children Act 1989: Putting it into Practice. Routledge.
Shoesmith, S., 2016. Learning from Baby P: The politics of blame, fear and denial. Jessica
Kingsley Publishers.

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Singh, S.P., Paul, M., Parsons, H., Burns, T., Tyrer, P., Fazel, S., Deb, S., Islam, Z., Rugkåsa,
J., Gajwani, R. and Thana, L., 2017. A prospective, quantitative study of mental health act
assessments in England following the 2007 amendments to the 1983 act: did the changes
fulfill their promise?. BMC psychiatry, 17(1), p.246.
Slater, L. and Barton, C., 2016. It's voluntary! Accommodation under s 20 of the Children
Act 1989. Family law, 46(9), pp.1141-1146.