JUSTICE help secure Government amendment to increase human rights protections in outsourced mental healthcare

The Government have amended the Mental Health Bill to clarify that mentally ill individuals who receive contracted-out mental health care and/ or treatment in private facilities should get full protection under the Human Rights Act. This is an important victory for vulnerable individuals and will ensure greater accountability for outsourced mental health services.  

The Human Rights Act requires all public authorities to comply with the rights in the European Convention on Human Rights. However, the definition of public authority has been interpreted narrowly when services are outsourced, including for those in care. Successive Governments have attempted to fix this accountability gap, but individuals slipped through the cracks of these attempts.  

In the case of Sammut, a man with chronic and treatment resistant schizophrenia was transferred from a secure hospital to a private nursing facility (all publicly funded). He was deprived of his liberty without proper authorisation and sadly died, due to the side effects of an atypical anti-psychotic medication. However, his family’s human rights claim against the private facility was struck out as the court concluded the provider was not a public authority under the Human Rights Act.  

This amendment will ensure that, in similar cases in the future, the private provider will owe full human rights obligations to the individual.  

In 2024, JUSTICE published our report ‘Beyond the Blame Game: a responsible and rights-centred approach to government contracting’. This report highlighted that outsourced public services often lack oversight, accountability and transparency risking people’s rights. We recommended that, if there was uncertainty about human rights obligations, there is a strong case to clarify the law, as has now been done in the Mental Health Bill.  

We are continuing to push for a similar amendment for children’s care providers in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill.  

This amendment would not have been possible without the tireless work of Dr Lucy Series (University of Bristol), Prof Luke Clements (Leeds University), Mark McGhee (Hutcheon Law) and the late Prof Conor Gearty KC (Hons). We also wish to thank Baroness Keeley and Baroness Barker for their support in Parliament.  

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