Abtisam Mohamed

I will speak on new clause 35, which sets out the conditions under which community treatment orders can be extended beyond 12 months. Like many across my constituency of Sheffield Central, I know personally how overstretched our mental health services are. My brother lives with complex mental health needs and our family has seen at first hand the impact of a churning workforce, long waiting lists and a lack of community support services, brought about by an unrelenting crisis in funding. Our system has not been properly expanded or adapted to meet the challenges. Instead, far too many people are detained and restricted, rather than supported to recover. We see this nowhere more acutely than in the overuse of community treatment orders, which were supposed to be a bridge from hospital to home for those who are constantly readmitted to hospital. People have described them as “a tag that nobody can see, but you know it’s around your mind.” The evidence shows that they have not met their intended purposes, with three major studies having found no reduction in readmissions or hospital time through their use. Yet despite the previous Government having promised reform, community treatment orders have continued. Reform has been too slow and too narrow in scope.