The Role Of Mental Health Services Act

The Mental Capacity Act 2005 (MCA 2005) introduced a statutory framework for advance decision making in England and Wales building upon the common law recognition of advance decisions. Academics considered that a bias may operate against upholding advance decisions refusing life-sustaining treatment 1. It’s commonly felt that judges usually give decisions favouring preservation of life and making advance decisions invalid on various grounds. Recent case-law indicates that a high level of specificity is required for advance refusals of life-sustaining treatment and, in some capacity must be demonstrated at the time of making the decision. This essay will argue the legal back ground of the advance decisions and relevant case law. There are suggestions that advance care planning (ACP) instead of advance decisions (ADRT) may be more helpful when it comes to the practice of law on ground 2.

The lack of treatment for mental illnesses — due partly from the stigma with which it is associated with — comes with a number of public issues: economically,

One of the biggest contributors for poor healthcare is the stigma against mental health. This stigma allows healthcare providers to view those with a mental illness as having low relevance, thus creating disinclination towards providing adequate resources and/or care. This negative stance, based on misinformation and prejudice creates those that have a mental illness to lose their self confidence. Because of this loss, people with mental illness decide not to contribute to their health or livelihood. In the past fifty years, many advances have been made in mental healthcare. However, with the attached stigma, many people choose to not seek out treatment.

* Section 1 of the mental health act 1983 was amended in 2007. This section of the act defines a mental disorder as   'any disorder or disability of mind ' it goes on to state that a “learning disability” is define as a state of arrested or incomplete development of the mind which also includes impairment of intelligence and social functioning (MHOL, 2010).

The Mental Health Services Act is a monumental proposition that has helped many people for more than a decade. In California alone, close to 1.2 million adults and around 422,000 children live with a serious mental illness (State 2010). Without the proper treatment, suicide is the leading cause of death for a person battling an untreated mental illness (State 2010). With over thirteen billion dollars raised so far, MHSA has been the root of funding for mental health in California (Williams 2015). MHSA is still a work in progress. The act is nowhere near perfect, as a recent audit has shown, but it is certainly a step in the right direction.

According to the World Health Organization, mental illness will affect approximately 25% of people at some point in their life (“WHO Qualityrights”, n.d.). Despite that, the current mental health care system in the United States is inadequate. Many aspects of the system need improving, especially the barriers to service. In fact, approximately 20% of individuals are left without necessary treatment for their mental health disorder (“Mental Health”, 2016). Mentally ill individuals have difficulty accessing necessary mental health care services for various reasons; insurance, socioeconomic status, and mental health stigma can all function as barriers to treatment. Insurance discrimination can make it difficult for individuals to find treatment (Han, Call, Pintor, Alarcon-Espinoza, & Simon, 2015). Gaps in insurance coverage can also be a barrier, as they disrupt the long-term treatment process (Gulley, Rasch, & Chan 2011). Socioeconomic status has been found to negatively affect appointment scheduling (Kugelmass, 2016). Finally, stigma in our society can also stop people from seeking out treatment that they need (Bathje & Pryor, 2011). The mental health system in the United States is not capable of caring for the mentally ill, as insurance, socioeconomic status, and perceived stigma all act as barriers that prevent people from receiving the treatment they need.

Problem Statement: The World Health Association defines ‘good’ health as: “a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.” However, in the United States, access to care and funding for mental health care are grossly neglected and underfunded in comparison to other aspects of health care.

Senate (S.) 689 is the Mental Health Awareness and Improvement Act of 2013, which resanctions and increases critical behavioral health programs through superior federal education and healthcare programs related to awareness, early identification, and prevention of mental illness (The Library of Congress, 2013). United States Senators Tom Harkin (D-IA) and Lamar Alexander (R-TN) pioneered S. 689 on April 9, 2013 (The Library of Congress, 2013). There are 23 co-sponsors of the Mental Health Awareness and Improvement Act of 2013, including 14

Policy analysis of mental health care under the ACA as well as description of how mental health care/service are organized under the ACA from federal to local levels.

The goal of the Excellence in Mental Health Act (EMHA) is not to direct healthcare professionals on how they should provide care, instead, the EMHA is designed to aid a facility in its ability to provide each client with an excellent standard of care despite his or her particular situation. The act offers quality objectives that intend to place a renewed focus on person-center care as well as the quality of the care delivered.

In today’s society there is a greater awareness of mental illnesses. With this greater awareness one might assume that there would be a substantial increase in government involvement or funding in the area of mental illness treatment. Unfortunately this isn’t the case in the U.S. today. There are hundreds of thousands of people with mental illness that go untreated. These potential patients go untreated for many reasons. These reasons are discussed in the Time article “Mental Health Reform: What Would it Really Take.

The Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act (MHPAEA) applies to organizations with fifty or more employees that offer group health insurance

The negative stigma of mental health has lightened slightly over the years, however, it has not rescinded entirely. People still have an unmanageable time admitting that they may have a mental disorder and that they require assistance. Human beings struggle with these hindrances openly and also hidden on a daily basis. Therefore, our civilization needs to remove the shame associated with the treatment of mental disorders and work on devising a progressive suitable mental healthcare plan in order to ensure that many live a healthy, happy, and prosperous

The Ontario Mental Health Act has adopted a broad definition of mental health. The term broad has been defined as “any disease or disability in mind” (Mental Health Act, 1990 as cited in Gray et al., 2016). Apart from Ontario, only Quebec has adopted such a definition to mental health. Other jurisdictions have been more specific in defining mental health (Gray et al., 2016). The authors pointed out that the mental health act in

Access to mental health care is not as good as than other forms of medical services. Some Americans have reduced access to mental health care amenities because they are living in a countryside setting. Others cannot get to treatment for the reason of shortage of transportation or vast work and household tasks. In some areas, when a