Monitoring the Mental Health Act in 2019/20: the Mental Health Act in the COVID-19 pandemic

This annual report on CQC monitoring of the Mental Health Act (MHA) puts a specific focus on the impact that the COVID-19 pandemic has had on patients detained under the MHA, and on the services that care for and treat them. The findings indicate that: planning for individuals’ discharge from hospital continues to be essential and is particularly important during the pandemic period due to the increased burden on all services, including those in the community; some services showed exemplary practice in the co-production of care with patients, including infection control measures; in many services the physical environment requires modernisation and doing so would have the added positive impact of making infection control easier; some services continued to uphold restrictions on patients’ movement, activities and leave for longer than seemed necessary; many services invested in software to help detained patients to stay connected with their family and other sources of support during the pandemic; detained patients’ access to advocacy services was made more difficult during the pandemic, but such services played an even more crucial role where patients’ lives were more limited by infection control measures; there needs to be careful evaluation of using remote technology should aspects of them continue after the pandemic abates.