Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps her Department are taking to improve safeguarding surrounding people with complex mental health conditions who refuse treatment.

Later this year, the Government will publish its new Mental Health Strategy, setting out our plans to transform mental health care into a system that responds earlier, reduces waiting times for support, intervenes earlier, and supports people to stay active and participate in education, work, family, and community life.

We are also developing a Modern Service Framework for Severe Mental Illness, setting out what high-quality, evidence-based and equitable care should look like.

The Mental Health Act 2025 introduces new treatment safeguards to ensure that patients’ wishes, feelings, beliefs, and values play a more central role in clinical decision making. It maintains the power to give compulsory medication where necessary, with greater safeguards to ensure this power is used only when necessary and appropriate.