Disability awareness

In a continuing series, Carolyn Kirby, chairman of the Law Society's mental health and disability committee, discusses its role in representing the concerns of people with mental or physical disabilities or disorder and those of elderly clients The Law Society's mental health and disability committee was originally the mental health sub-committee, created in 1987.

It became a fully-fledged committee in December 1999.

The committee has responsibility for legal issues affecting people with any form of mental or physical disability or disorder and provision of legal services to elderly clients.

This includes the role of solicitors in helping their clients to safeguard and enforce their rights, and also assisting them to obtain the care and treatment they need from both health and social services.

The strength of the committee comes from the breadth and depth of the expertise of committee members.

Membership includes solicitors in private practice with considerable expertise in mental health law, a Mental Health Review Tribunal [MHRT] chairman, a QC, a legal academic, a consultant psychiatrist, and representatives of relevant voluntary organisations.

The committee is also able to draw on the expertise of members of the mental health review tribunal panel who have been approved by the Law Society as competent to represent patients at the MHRT.

The committee has an excellent record of developing and pursuing initiatives aimed at encouraging solicitors to improve their knowledge and experience, and hence to promote best practice, in areas of law which have traditionally been neglected by the profession.

It has worked hard to raise awareness among both the profession and the public of legal problems or areas of law in which practice needs to be improved, through holding conferences and seminars.

Since its inception, the committee has held conferences or seminars at least annually, each year choosing a topical subject relevant to its work in promoting best practice.

This has often involved solicitors in participating in the Law Society's work on pushing for improvements in the law.

All have attracted capacity audiences and have stimulated ideas for future initiatives by the committee as well as being informative for delegates.

A successful conference on law and justice for people with learning disabilities was held jointly with the Department of Health in March 2001.

The committee has also issued guidance to the profession on matters which have been raised by practitioners - either directly with the committee, or through the Law Society's practice advice service or its professional ethics division - as being problematic.

During the last year, the committee has continued to press for reform of the law relating to decision-making by and on behalf of mentally-incapacitated adults.

It responded to the government's green paper on reform of the Mental Health Act 1983 and government proposals for managing people with severe personality disorders, seeking to achieve the correct balance between safeguarding the rights, and protecting the interest, of patients and others.

Now, at the white paper stage, the committee is engaged in regular meetings with the Department of Health as the legislative proposals develop.

This is a constructive dialogue and is proving to be a valuable forum for discussion and a useful conduit for the profession's concerns.

The committee hopes that this type of dialogue will be applied to emerging legislation in other areas of its remit.The committee responded to the review of tribunals conducted by Sir Anthony Leggatt.

The response pointed out that despite improvements brought about by the Mental Health Act 1983, a number of research reports, as well as the on-going monitoring of the Council of Tribunals, have identified significant failings in the operation of the MHRT.

A significant factor is the increase in workload of the tribunal.During the past ten years, there has been an enormous increase in the number of patients detained under the Act with a consequent rise in the number of applications to the MHRT.

Despite continued efforts to reduce delay and at least three administrative reviews intended to improve the efficiency of the secretariat, the MHRT has rarely been in a position to cope with the demand for its service.

It is to be hoped that the report, when it is published, addresses some of these issues.

The committee will, from August, have the benefit of a new policy advisor, Philip King, and is confident that its proud record of promoting law reform in difficult areas of law which greatly affect the everyday lives of vulnerable people will be maintained.