Mental Health (Recovery Model) Bill 2015

Overview

This bill replaces Queensland's Mental Health Act 2000 with a new framework for treating people with mental illness who cannot consent to their own care. It is built around a recovery model that treats people in the community wherever possible, strengthens patient rights, and provides clearer ways to divert people with mental illness from the criminal justice system while protecting the community.

Who it affects

People with mental illness and their families, carers and support persons are most affected, along with patients who are charged with serious offences. Doctors, mental health services, police, ambulance officers, the Mental Health Court and the Mental Health Review Tribunal also operate under new rules.

Key changes

• Replaces involuntary treatment orders with treatment authorities that require a person to lack capacity to consent and there to be a risk of serious harm before involuntary treatment can be given
• Makes community treatment the default so people are not held in hospital unless inpatient care is the only way to meet their needs
• Lets people appoint a nominated support person in advance to speak for them if they become unwell
• Allows magistrates to discharge people who appear to have been of unsound mind at the time of an alleged offence or unfit for trial
• Creates court treatment orders as a less restrictive alternative to forensic orders, and allows non-revoke periods of up to 7 years for forensic orders for serious violent offences
• Regulates mechanical restraint and seclusion through chief psychiatrist approval and reduction and elimination plans, and prohibits psychosurgery
• Requires public sector mental health services to provide patient rights advisers and ensures free legal representation at specified tribunal hearings
• Lets victims of unlawful acts apply for information notices about patients who have been diverted from the criminal justice system