Submissions Period On The Mental Health Bill Extended To 20 December 2024

The Health Committee opened for submissions on the Mental Health Bill on 25 October 2024 for six weeks. The committee acknowledges the complexity of the bill, and understands the need for lived experience communities and organisations to have enough time to prepare their submissions. The committee is therefore extending the closing date for submissions to Friday, 20 December 2024.

This bill would repeal and replace the Mental Health (Compulsory Assessment and Treatment) Act 1992. The bill aims to create a modern legislative framework for compulsory mental health care. It would:

• establish principles to guide decision-making about compulsory care
• enable patients to express their preferences and specify what care they agree to
• set out the rights of patients, children, and young people
• establish a complaints process
• update the processes for assessment and care of patients
• provide for people who enter compulsory mental health care through the justice system
• reduce restrictive practices such as seclusion
• set out how compulsory mental health care will be administered, monitored, and reported on.

The Ministry of Health has prepared an overview document which provides a summary of the key areas of the bill and background information. It sets out:

• the scope and context for developing the bill
• what the government heard through public consultation in 2021/22
• what the bill is seeking to achieve
• when the bill will take effect.

You can request to make a private or anonymous submission

Any person can ask to make a private or anonymous submission to the committee. An anonymous submission means that your name would not be associated with your written submission. A private submission means that your submission would not be publicly available until after the committee finishes its consideration of the bill. You can also ask to make an oral submission without making a written submission first.

If you would like to have your submission received anonymously or privately, please mention this in your written submission. If you have any questions about making a submission, you can contact the Health Committee Secretariat by emailing health@parliament.govt.nz or phoning (04) 817 9520.

Tell the Health Committee what you think

Make a submission on the bill by midnight on Friday, 20 December 2024.

For more details about the bill:

• Read the full content of the bill
• Read the Minister of Mental Health’s legislative statement about the bill
• What’s been said in Parliament about the bill?
• Read about the Ministry of Health’s work to replace the Mental Health Act

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