Collaboration with UK National Preventive Mechanism on monitoring in psychiatric detention

Dr Judy Laing (as a member of the Human Rights Implementation Centre and co-Director of the Centre for Health, Law, and Society) organised a session on mental health monitoring and international human rights standards at the International Association of Law and Mental Health Congress in Prague in July 2017. The session included members of the Care Quality Commission (CQC), Scottish Mental Welfare Commission and the Regulation and Quality Improvement Authority in Northern Ireland. Together these bodies make up the UK National Preventive Mechanism with responsibility for monitoring mental health detention across the UK. The session in Prague focused on how monitors can effectively implement international human rights standards in their monitoring work, with a particular focus on the obligations in United Nations Optional Protocol on the Convention Against Torture and the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. This session forms part of Judy’s ongoing external engagement work with the UK National Preventive Mechanism on monitoring in psychiatric detention.