BMH UK: Briefing on 2006 Mental Health Bill

Friday, 27, Apr 2007 12:00

Tuesday 1 May 2007

2.00 – 5.00pm

Committee Room 6, House of Commons, Westminster London, SW1A 0AA

A briefing on the impact 2006 Mental Health Bill will have on African Caribbean communities who are currently subject to excessive use of the current Mental Health Act will be held at Westminster on Tuesday 1 May 2007, committee room 6 at the House of Commons.

Hosted by the human rights campaigns groups Black Mental Health UK in association with The 1990 Trust this meeting will inform MPs on what changes need to be made to the Bill in order to address the widespread discrimination within mental health services which health campaigners say has destroyed a generation of Black Briton’s.

Expert panel include:

• Sarah Tether MP for Brent East - chair for Black Mental Health UKs briefing

• Pedro Okorro – chair of African Caribbean Evangelical Alliance and solicitor

• Chinyere Inyama – Mental Health Review Tribunal president and mental health lawyer

• Lee Jasper – chair African Caribbean Mental Health Commission and race advisor to the Mayor of London

• Prof. Suman Fernando – consultant psychiatrist and lecturer and member of the National BME Mental Health Alliance

• Pastor Ade Omooba – founder Coherent and Cohesive

• Andy Bell – chair Mental Health Alliance

The Governments announcement to overturn all the amendments made to the Bill during it’s passage in the House of Lords has received widespread condemnation by human rights and race equality groups.

News that the select committee debating the Bill in the Commons has voted to overturn the amendment which placed exclusion on the definition of mental disorder this week is seen as a serious blow.

‘Reforming this Bill is a major test of the government’s commitment to race equality and from what we can see from this weeks debate at committee stage there has been outright failure over this issue.

African Caribbean communities have detention rates that are 44% higher than British White people, this means that almost every black family in this country will be effected by this law. This issue is too important for the Government not to listen and take on board our concerns. It beggars belief that rather than pushing for more progressive changes in order to ensure the rights of the most vulnerable in our community we are see moves to widened the gateway by which people are forcibly pushed into a system that is actually damaging for their health,’ Matilda MacAttram, director of Black Mental Health UK said.

Notes to the editor

? Journalist attending this briefing should arrive via St Stephen’s Gate at the House of Commons, nearest tube is Westminster

? Black Mental Health UK campaign for justice in the 2006 Mental Health Bill can be access at www.blackmentalhealth.org.uk

? BMH UK campaign supporters include ACMHC (African Caribbean Mental Health Commission) ,ACEA (African Caribbean Evangelical Alliance), BPA (Black Police Association), The Society of Black Lawyers, The Mental Health Alliance, Inquest, 100 Black Men of London, Keep The Faith, Revolving Doors, Ligali, The 1990 Trust, Operation Black Vote and The Black Londoner’s Forum

? African Caribbean’s are 44% more likely to be sectioned, 29% more likely to be forcibly restrained, 50% more likely to be placed in seclusion and make up 30% of in patients on medium secure psychiatric wards despite having similar rates of mental illness as British white people.