Labour Created Discriminatory Document Against ALL Mental Health Patient Choice UK

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By UserWatch Correspondents & Art De Rivers

This report shows the full document finally signed off by a Senior Civil Servant Jan 2009 .

It shows a deliberate exclusion by the Secretary of State of ALL mental health patient choices as a legal mechanism across the UK, which is a legal right already enjoyed by the rest of the public as of April 2009 .

FULL DOCUMENT HERE

We believe this document is firstly discriminating on disability grounds , and secondly its stigmatizing through its second class citizenship implications and we NOTE the mental health charities like MIND, Rethink and Mental Health Foundation, and SHIFT (whatever it is), have done little to press for reform of full patient choice legal equality in mental health . Where were they when this document was drafted ? The MH charities currently glove puppeting the Labour Govt, are however service provisioners and competitors with any other forms of choices, market or otherwise, that could exist under Mental Health Patient Choice legal mechanisms, were indeed those mechanisms to exist .

AND THEY KNOW IT. Is real Patient Choice in Mental Health at odds with Charity interests - of course, because it creates freedom of choice and real options other than a rigged shallow corralled market.

Thirdly the document is actually at odds with the new legal right from April 2009 to go to your UK GP and get a 1st appointment choice of consultant (from a choice of consultants) and then onto an elective choice of Secondary Care Provider (treatment/therapy) - from a choice of Secondary Care Providers ..

The Dept of health have been contacted (we have the material) and argue in response to accusations of discrimination that mostly mental health does not present and travel that pathway of : GP - Consultant - Secondary care provider, but they interpretively locate the mental health care pathway as mainly the Community Care Team etc ...

Well, they are not really correct at all, but have tactically shifted their own attention to the care pathway as it becomes evolved further on from the initial GP and Consultant area ...

Below we show extracts but download the document above .. It first appears as if Mental Health Patient Choice is ruled out only for those on the 1983 Act i.e. on "Sections" (legal orders requiring acute sufferers be contained within a ward) - yet when checked with the Dept of Health the block is on against all Mental Health Patient Choices of treatments .. Even non acutes .

EXTRACTS FROM THE CHOICES GUIDANCE DOCUMENT

The Primary Care Trusts (Choice of Secondary Care Provider)
Directions 2009

Services to which the duty does not apply:

3.—(1) Direction 2 does not apply in relation to—

(a) accident and emergency services;
(b) cancer services or services provided at rapid access chest pain clinics which are subject to
the 2 week maximum waiting time(a);
(c) maternity services;
(d) mental health services; or
(e) any other services where it is necessary to provide urgent care.

(2) In this direction—

“accident and emergency services” means services provided at the accident and emergency department, or a minor injuries unit, of a health service hospital and does not include any subsequent treatment connected with the provision of those services; “maternity services” includes all services relating to female patients from the start of the pregnancy to 6 weeks after the birth other than services relating to medical termination of the pregnancy within the meaning of section 1 of the Abortion Act 1967(b); “mental health services” means services provided to patients in relation to a disorder or disability of the mind.

Persons to whom the duty does not apply :

4.—(1) Direction 2 does not apply in relation to any person who is—

(a) detained under the Mental Health Act 1983(c);
(b) detained in or on temporary release from prison; or
(c) serving as a member of the armed forces.
(2) In this direction—
“prison” includes any other institution to which prison rules made under section 47 of the
Prison Act 1952(d) apply;
“armed forces” means the naval, military or air forces of the Crown.

Signed by authority of the Secretary of State for Health.
20th January 2009 Katharine Peters
Member of the Senior Civil Service
Department of Health


PS .. Watch Out For Distorted Messages From Labour