The first Mental Health Act 2025 commencement regulations have been made by the Secretary of State. These will bring sections 51 and 52 of the 2025 Act into force on 6 April.
Section 51 inserts section 142C in the Mental Health Act 1983 and extends the remit of the Human Rights Act 1998 to private care providers, requiring them to act compatibly with the Convention rights set out in the Human Rights Act 1998, when providing services to informal patients and under section 117 (and its equivalent in Scotland).
Section 52 places a statutory duty on the Secretary of State to review regulation 18 of the Care Quality Commission (Registration) Regulations 2009 to consider the circumstances in which the Care Quality Commission ought to be notified where a person under the age of eighteen is an inpatient in a hospital or registered establishment and is being treated for, or being assessed in relation to, mental disorder. A report setting out the conclusions of the review must be laid and published by the Secretary of State before the end of the period of two years beginning on the day that the 2025 Act was passed.
For further information- Please find the link for the Steps towards implementation- the new MHA- MHA Implementation – Presentation for AN March 2026.pdf which gives you a good idea of the timescales for full implementation. Explanatory notes for the MH Act can also be found here Mental Health Act 2025
A government amendment to the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill will provide that local authorities must allow reasonable contact between children in care and their whole, half and step-siblings where this is consistent with their welfare. Read more here; New legislation to keep brothers and sisters connected in care – GOV.UK
The latest DOLS figures are out. They show that during 2024 to 2025:
* 364,900 applications for DoLS were received (up 9.8% from 2023 to 2024).
* The proportion of DoLS applications which have an urgent authorisation attached was 58%
* 353,935 applications for DoLS were completed (up 9.3% from 2023 to 2024), of which: 159,665 (45.1%) were fully assessed; 16,130 (4.6%) were partially assessed; and 178,140 (50.3%) were closed without any assessments
* 3,975 completed, fully assessed applications for DoLS were not granted (2.5% of all applications that were completed and fully assessed, down from 3.0% in 2023 to 2024)
* 118,850 applications for DoLS were not completed at year end (down by 4.0% from 123,790 in 2023 to 2024)
* 21.1% of applications for DoLS were completed within the statutory timeframe of 21 days (up 2.5 percentage points from 18.6% in 2023 to 2024)
* for DoLS applications that were completed, the average (mean) length of time from receiving an application to completion was 126 days (down from 144 days in 2023 to 2024)
Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards, England: 2024 to 2025 – GOV.UK
The Health Secretary Wes Streeting told ITV News he will be looking at “a review of, and ultimately reform of, the Mental Capacity Act”.
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