Mental Health Bill 2025
Understanding the impact on children, young people and adults with learning disabilities and their families, and maximising the opportunities to tackle inappropriate detention
This CB-NSG national meeting, which was held online, focused on the Mental Health Bill, which was about to be debated in the House of Commons after having already been scrutinised in the House of Lords.
Find out more about the Mental Health Bill
Download the slides from the meeting below:
Presentations
Setting the scene
In the first presentation, the CBF’s CEO Jacqui Shurlock gave an overview of the history of the Transforming Care programme and how the CB-NSG has fed into this. Jacqui also shared some key areas of current policy that we need to be thinking about alongside the reform of the Mental Health Bill. She emphasised the need to maximise the opportunities to influence policy to enable people with a learning disability and their families to get the right support.
You can watch Jacqui’s presentation below. You can also click the buttons to read our summary papers about the current policy context, view the timeline animation, or download the timeline as an image/PDF.
Summary paper – health and social care policy
Summary paper – children and young people policy
Family carer presentation: Why Good Community Support is Needed
A family carer produced a presentation based on their relative’s experiences of not receiving the right support. As the person and their family are currently going through a legal process, this presentation was anonymised and presented by the CBF’s Family Support Lead, Gemma Harpum.
The recording and slides of this section are not being shared to minimise any chance of the individual and their family being identified. However, in delivering the presentation Gemma Harpum shared that many of the issues that this individual and their family have faced are not unique and are frequently faced by people who contact the CBF. These include local areas not having specialist services that can meet needs; being unable to access alternative/crisis accommodation if it is needed; and the impact that navigating the system without support has had on the individual’s family.
Mental Health Act Reforms
Dan Scorer, Head of Policy and Public Affairs at Mencap, then gave an overview of what changes the Mental Health Bill will make, and what the aims of these changes are. A key focus was on the importance of community support to implementing these changes.
Community Ingredients
Following on from Dan highlighting the importance of community support, Christine Bakewell, Deputy Director for Learning Disability and Autism – Community Development at NHS England, and Emily Williams, Senior Programme Manager in the Community Development Team of the Learning Disability & Autism Programme at NHS England, gave a presentation about the Community Ingredients programme.
Community Ingredients is an NHS England-led programme, commissioned by the Department of Health and Social Care, that aims to identify (based on existing knowledge and good practice) what good community support is needed to prevent children, young people and adults with a learning disability and/or who are autistic from being detained in hospital.
Christine gave an overview of what the Community Ingredients work is and what it aims to achieve, and Emily highlighted the key learning from the engagement that has taken place so far.
Also during this presentation, attendees heard from Simone Bayes, Deputy Director of Neurodiversity, Disabilities and Learning Disabilities at the Department of Health and Social Care, who introduced herself and the work that is currently being done by the Department.
The Community Ingredients presentation was followed by questions from attendees.
How the Bill becomes law
The first presentation of the afternoon was delivered by Megan McIvor, who works in the policy team at the Department of Health and Social Care. Megan gave an overview of the legislative process – how the Mental Health Bill will become law. This included updates on two commitments made by the Government while the Bill was in the House of Lords, which aim to strengthen the rights of people with learning disabilities and autistic people, and to ensure that the changes in the Bill are implemented.
Campaign 4 Change and SeeAbility: the difference good community support makes to everyday life
The final presentation of the day was a video of a discussion group held by self-advocates from Campaign 4 Change and SeeAbility, thinking about what good community support is and the difference that it makes to their lives.
Discussion groups
Alongside these presentations, attendees participated in discussion groups focusing on three key areas that are going to be impacted by the Mental Health Bill and the development of community support:
- Care (Education) and Treatment Reviews
- Dynamic Support Registers and commissioning duties
- Intensive Support Teams and alternative accommodation
These discussion groups were held in the morning and repeated in the afternoon, so that all attendees had the opportunity to discuss 2 out of the 3 topics.
The write-ups of these discussion groups have been shared with NHS England and the Department of Health and Social Care.
Read the write-ups by clicking the buttons below:
Overarching Themes and Recommendations
Care (Education) and Treatment Reviews