Government launches green paper on mental health

Health secretary Alan Milburn this week published proposals for a reform of the Mental Health Act 1983, as part of his plans to modernise the NHS in England and Wales.

Patients discharged from psychiatric hospitals will be given orders specifying where they will live and what treatment they will have. If they break the terms of the order, they will be returned to hospital for compulsory treatment.

Meanwhile the government's recent proposals for the permanent detention of people with personality disorder were heavily criticised by psychiatrists at a joint conference held by the Royal Society of Medicine and Royal College of …