The Children’s Commissioner’s role is to promote and protect the rights of children, including by advising on legislation which affects children. She has a particular duty towards those children with a social worker, in care, or living away from home – including those in mental health inpatient settings. Her advocacy services, Help at Hand, regularly works with children placed in inpatient settings whose needs are not being met. She therefore welcomes the government’s action to deliver on its manifesto commitment to modernise the 1983 Mental Health Act.
There is no minimum age limit in the Mental Health Act, meaning a child of any age can be subject to this legislation. Children in mental health hospitals are especially vulnerable, lacking many of the protections and rights afforded to adults. The Children’s Commissioner has consistently called for an end to the use of inpatient mental health provision, and improved community services, in each of her annual mental health reports since she took up post, as well as in her recommendations on the draft Mental Health Bill. Because too often, rather than getting better, children’s experiences of being hospitalised can be devastating. Now is the last opportunity for the necessary changes to be made to the Bill.
In August 2025 the inquest into the tragic death of Ruth Szymankiewicz found that she was unlawfully killed because of multiple failings in her care. Ruth was just 14 years old when she died while detained under the Mental Health Act in a Psychiatric Intensive Care ward. The reform of the Mental Health Act is a chance to introduce greater safeguards for children, so that tragedies like this are not repeated.
The Commissioner believes that Report stage is a vital opportunity to:
- Introduce strengthened safeguards against, and accountability for, children being placed in inappropriate settings, such as adult wards and placements far from their home.
- Ensure that children are able to maintain vital, loving relationships with parents and carers whenever they are admitted.
Deliver on the goals of the 10-year health plan with strengthened duty to provide community-based support, to tackle health inequalities and reduce the number of children being hospitalised and deprived of their liberty. This will only be possible with increased investment in children and young people’s mental health and therapeutic services.
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