News - Mental Health Race And Culture (mhrac)

News

The government has presented amendments to the (current) Mental Health Act 1983 in certain specified areas.
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Whenever a policy or piece of legislation that may impact adversly on any particular racial group is constructed, the relevant department has the obligation to carry out a Race Equality Impact Assessment (REIA) of it. The details of the law under which REIAs have to be carried out and the procedure for carrying out a REIA are given on the Commission for Racial Equality (CRE) website.

In the case of the amendments to the Mental Health Act 1983 now before parliament, the Department of Health (DH) has a legal obligation to consider the Amended Act as a whole. The DH agreed with the BME Mental Health Network that they will be involved in planning and implementation of any consultation meetings in connection with the REIA but then proceeded to organise consultation meetings with BME communities without involving the Network. So the Network pursued its own consultations and then made direct contact with DH civil servants and ministers with suggestions. But DH, disregarding all objections, presented to parliament a list of amendments that are almost totally unacceptable to BME Network and did so without a proper REIA being carried out.

It is in these circumstances that I felt unable to accept the offer by Tony Blair of being reccomended for a OBE. The letters I wrote are in the public domain - to Tony Blair and Gordon Brown (click name to see).

PROPOSED AMENDMENTS TO MENTAL HEALTH ACT 1983
Prof. Suman Fernanado

Talk given at a meeting of the BME Mental Health Network suggesting amendments to the Mental Health Act to address racial inequalities and biases in the Act. More...

Your comments, questions and suggestions are welcomed. If you'd like to communicate your thoughts, comments or question, please sent your email to mhrac@btinternet.com.
Thank you

Meeting of Black & Minority Ethnic Mental Health Network
12 MAY 2006: LONDON

Scenarios for proposed amendments to Mental Health Act Devised
by Suman Fernando

Scenarios constructed from stories of black and minority ethnic people who have been ‘patients’ in the British Mental Health system, to illustrate ways in which amending the Act as described in another talk could impact on injustices in its implementation.

Scenario One
D is a tall black man in his late seventies. After being stopped and searched several times, D felt persecuted by the police for many years during his forties and fifties. D was apprehended for allegedly attacking a policeman, diagnosed with ‘schizophrenia’ and kept in hospital on Section 37 for ten years until he was sixty-five. More...