Letters

Anti-therapeutic community mental health law

EDITOR,--Nigel Eastman's editorial seems deliberately to present the Mental Health (Patients in the Community) Bill in the most negative possible light.¹ I would like to redress the balance. Eastman says that the bill "attempts to substitute legal rules for resources." The increased resources devoted to the care of mentally ill people are a matter of record, and I will not repeat it here. But the assertion simply does not stand up. The purpose of aftercare under supervision is defined as being to ensure that the patient "receives the after-care services provided for him." You cannot have the supervision without the services--surely just the reciprocal principle that Eastman says the bill eschews.

Eastman misrepresents the importance of the power to convey a patient to a place "for medical treatment, occupation, education or training." The therapeutic relationship, which he rightly underlines, must remain crucial, . . . [Full text of this article]

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Anti-therapeutic community mental health law

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• Leung, W.-C. (2002). Why the professional-Client Ethic is Inadequate in Mental Health Care. Nurs Ethics 9: 51-60 [Abstract]  
• McManus, I C, Esmail, A., Demetriou, M. (1998). Factors affecting likelihood of applicants being offered a place in medical schools in the United Kingdom in 1996 and 1997: retrospective study • Commentary: League tables will help • Commentary: Some legal aspects arising from the study. BMJ 317: 1111-1117 [Abstract] [Full text]  
• Eastman, N. (1995). Anti-therapeutic community mental health law. BMJ 311: 689-689 [Full text]