Mental Health Act or Coercive Framework

From my perspective inside the system, I can’t ignore what I see: for many, the Mental Health Act feels less like protection and more like coercion.

It doesn’t always feel like it safeguards people. It can feel like it frightens them into compliance through the threat of diagnosis and detention, all while dressed in the language of “care.”

Every day, people subject to the Act describe being treated less like human beings and more like problems to be managed within a medical paradigm. Their experiences are pathologised. Their agency is stripped. And the framework seems to legitimise it all.

And here’s the tension that’s harder to look at: the Mental Health Act does not sit easily alongside the Human Rights Act. In practice, the way it is sometimes applied on the ground can feel disproportionate. Liberty is taken without clear necessity. Dignity is compromised without justification.

So I have to ask:

• When will we be recognised as people again?

• When will those of us on the receiving end of the Mental Health Act recognise that its authority is not absolute — that higher law, human rights law, must also be part of the picture?

Surely if I can see this, others can too.

The cracks are already showing. The question is: how much longer can we ignore them?

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are my own, drawn from lived experience and professional reflection. They do not represent the views of my employer or any NHS organisation.