The Independent Review of the Mental Health Act 1983 has set out recommendations for government on how the Act and associated practice needs to change.

The final report sets out recommendations covering 4 principles that the review believes should underpin the reformed Act:

• choice and autonomy – ensuring service users’ views and choices are respected
• least restriction – ensuring the Act’s powers are used in the least restrictive way
• therapeutic benefit – ensuring patients are supported to get better, so they can be discharged from the Act
• people as individuals – ensuring patients are viewed and treated as rounded individuals

The review looked at:

• rising rates of detention under the Act
• the disproportionate number of people from black and minority ethnic groups detained under the Act
• processes that are out of step with a modern mental health care system