Long Term Patient Psychological Talking Therapies Bill

A bill to provide long term patients treated under the Mental Health Act with regular access to psychological talking therapies.

BE IT ENACTED by The Queen's most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Commons in this present Parliament assembled, in accordance with the provisions of the Parliament Acts 1911 and 1949, and by the authority of the same, as follows:

Part 1 – Definitions

1) For the purposes of this act psychological talking therapy shall be defined as any psychotherapeutic intervention performed by a qualified professional accredited by the British Psychological Society, or other relevant body, to perform such psychotherapeutic interventions.

Part 2 – Minimum Therapy

1) All patients detained in a hospital for treatment under Part 2 Section 3 of the Mental Health Act for a condition without organic cause shall receive a minimum of 3 hours of appropriate psychological talking therapy per week.

2)All patients detained in a hospital for treatment under Part 2 Section 3 of the Mental Health Act for a condition with organic cause shall receive a minimum of 1 hour of appropriate psychological talking therapy per week.

3) All patients detained in a secure hospital for treatment under Part 3 of the Mental Health Act shall receive a minimum of 1 hour of appropriate psychological talking therapy per week.

4) All patients being treated under the Mental Health Act with a Community Treatment Order (CTO) shall receive a minimum of 1 hour of appropriate psychological talking therapy per week.

Part 3 – Concordance and Exceptions

1) Treatment mandated under Part 2 Sections 1-3 of this act shall not be required for patients taking leave of absence as defined in the Mental Health Act for the duration of the leave of absence.

2) Treatment mandated in Part 2 of this act shall not be required of patients with an acute medical condition which a General Practitioner or other relevant medical practitioner has deemed renders psychological temporarily inappropriate.

3) At the beginning or review of detention or CTO the Approved Mental Health Professional (AMHP) may determine that the patient should be exempt from the treatment required under Part two of this act on the following grounds:

(a) that psychological talking therapy is inappropriate for the patient due to the nature of the psychological condition.

(b) that psychological talking therapy is inappropriate for the patient due to a chronic physical illness or disability despite reasonable adjustments.

(c) that psychological talking therapy is inappropriate for the patient due to individual factors particular to the patient and may detrimental to effective treatment.

4) The AMHP must document their decision to exempt a patient from treatment using Part 3 Section 3 of this act.

6) A patient may be exempted from treatment required under Part 2 of this act if it is the opinion of two psychotherapists and the responsible physician that a patients lack of willingness to participate in psychological talking therapy renders that therapy without benefit.

7) The decision to exempt patients from treatment using Part 3 Section 6 of this act must be documented and reviewed by a psychotherapist every 4 months during the patients treatment under the Mental Health Act.

Part 4 – Appropriate Therapy

1) Psychological talking therapy will be considered as appropriate for the purposes of this act if on the basis of clinical evidence, professional guidelines and / or clinical judgement it is the optimal treatment for the psychological condition of the patient or for the patient's individual therapeutic needs.

Part 5 - Miscellaneous

1) - Short title, application and extent.

This Act —

(1) may be cited as the Psychotherapy Act 2015

(2) extends to the whole of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

(3) may be subject to additions and shall prevail over all other legislation;

Estimated Costings

Number of patients: part 2 section 3 = 7,500, part 3 = 2,000, CTO = 4500

Number of hours of talking therapy required per week = 29,000 hours

Any shortfall of required hours due to exemptions from the requirement of this bill shall be used in provision of therapy for patients under short term section.

Services adequately provided by 1500 new psychotherapists, based on an average on 20 hours contact time per week and factoring holiday and illness time, giving an annual staffing bill of £45 million based on a career average pay of £30,000.

Administrative and other costs £500,000 to include payment under QOF for use of GP surgeries for community psychotherapy.

It is anticipated that much of the cost of this bill will be recovered through a reduction in average duration of inpatient care. In addition it is anticipated that many patients will make a quicker return to work as a result of psychotherapy.

This bill was submitted by /u/whigwham on behalf of the Government.

The First Reading can be found here.

Voting on this motion will end on the 3rd of August at 10pm GMT.

Vote Aye, Nay or Abstain. Comments with anything else will be deleted. Comments that are edited will be void and not counted.