Mental health lawyers will be left open to negligence claims and put at risk of failing the Legal Services Commission's (LSC) peer review audit if proposed changes to legal aid funding are introduced, MPs have been warned.


Giving evidence to the constitutional affairs select committee, Richard Charlton, chairman of the Mental Health Lawyers Association, said the commission's proposal not to pay for work done in preparing for mental health review tribunals on behalf of clients detained under the Mental Health Act put solicitors in 'a Catch-22 situation'.



He said: 'They will not be paid if they carry out the work, but will be negligent and potentially fail the LSC's peer review audit if they don't do it. [The government] will also be in breach of the European Convention on Human Rights in that everyone detained under the Mental Health Act has a right to regular reviews of their case.'



Mr Charlton added that, in addition to not paying lawyers preparation time for tribunals, the LSC was also proposing to introduce fixed fees and had confirmed that no increases in legal aid rates would be forthcoming.

He said: 'Mental health lawyers are mostly already working to tight financial margins and many will now vote with their feet.'



The process has already started, he said, with the number of mental health panel specialists down by around 25% since 2000. The number of clients requiring representation at tribunals, on the other hand, has increased by 10% over the same period - with potentially 'disastrous [consequences for] many of the most vulnerable in our society'.



Mr Charlton, a partner at London firm Kaim Todner, said: 'Psychiatry is not a certain science, yet psychiatrists are given powers of detention and the right to administer mind-altering drugs. If a friend or relative was subject to such measures, we would want to ensure his or her rights were properly represented... The implication of these proposals is that such representation will cease to exist.'



Jonathan Rayner