Police State

Hewitt defends mental health proposals

Controversial revisions to mental health legislation will strike the right balance between improving patient safeguards and protecting the public, the health secretary, Patricia Hewitt, said yesterday.

The introduction of supervised community treatment is "essential" to help ensure that discharged patients continue to take medication and treatment to keep them well and help to protect the wider public, she said.

Ms Hewitt was opening a Commons second reading debate on the mental health bill.

The bill, which has suffered a series of defeats in the Lords, would amend existing legislation to ensure patients continue to take medication following discharge and to prevent relapses.

Its provisions will see some psychiatric patients discharged from hospital subject to supervised community treatment. Those undergoing the treatment will be obliged to comply with a specified regime, which campaigners say will place unnecessary restrictions on their civil liberties and may deter people with mental health problems from coming forward for treatment.

This is even more scary than talking CCTV.

If this becomes law and if a far right government got into power, they could lock up anyone who is 'subversive', or who is different from the norm, like Stalin and his gulags.