The Mental Health Act 2025 (MHA 2025) amends the “statement of principles” that must be included in the Code of Practice, and which must inform relevant decisions taken under the Act. These principles are:

• Choice and autonomy
• Least restriction
• Therapeutic benefit
• The person as an individual

Status: Not yet in force

The MHA 2025 introduces a new "serious harm" test for detention under sections 2 and 3 of the Act. It must be shown that serious harm may be caused to the health or safety of the patient or another person, unless the patient is detained.

Decision makers must also consider the "nature, degree and likelihood" of the harm for both section 2 and section 3 detentions. For section 3 detention, "appropriate treatment" must be available – defined as treatment with a reasonable prospect of alleviating or preventing the worsening of the patient’s disorder or one or more of its symptoms or manifestations.

Status: Not yet in force

The MHA 2025 shortens the period that a patient admitted to hospital may be kept in detention for treatment under section 3 and shortens the initial renewal periods. The revised detention periods will be as follows:
 

Detention period	Duration
Initial detention period	3 months (reduced from 6 months)
First renewal period	3 months (reduced from 6 months)
Second renewal period	6 months (reduced from 1 year)
Successive renewal periods	1 year

Status: Not yet in force

CTOs may only be used if there is a risk of "serious harm" to the health and safety of the patient or others, mirroring the revised detention threshold. The community clinician responsible for overseeing the patient’s care must be involved in decisions regarding CTOs, e.g. the making of a CTO; imposing, varying and suspending conditions; recall and revocation and discharge from CTO.

Patients with autism and a learning disability will be excluded from being placed on CTO unless they have co-occurring psychiatric disorder (this exclusion does not apply to Part 3 patients – those involved in criminal proceedings).

Status: Not yet in force

It will no longer be possible to detain autistic people or people with a learning disability under section 3 unless they have a co-occurring psychiatric disorder that warrants hospital treatment. They will also be excluded from being placed on a CTO unless they have a co-occurring psychiatric disorder (note that the exclusion does not apply to Part 3 patients).

Integrated Care Boards will be required to establish and maintain a dynamic support register of people with a learning disability and autistic people who are at risk of detention under the MHA.

Status: Not yet in force

The MHA 2025 includes a new “clinical checklist” for patient-centred treatment decisions under Part 4 of the Act.

The approved clinician in charge of treatment will need to evaluate all available treatment options; assist and encourage the patient to engage fully in decision-making; avoid assumptions about appropriate treatment; respect patient autonomy by considering the patient’s past and present wishes, feelings, beliefs and values; consider views of those close to the patient and take account of all relevant circumstances. When a patient lacks capacity, the approved clinician must also consider what the patient's wishes, feelings, views and beliefs would likely have been; including relevant written statement made when they had capacity.

Status: Not yet in force

Where a patient has capacity and consents to treatment for mental disorder, or lacks capacity but there is no conflict with an advance decision or a decision by a donee or deputy, treatment certification under s.58 MHA will be required after two months rather than three.

New safeguards will be introduced for patients with capacity who are refusing medication, and for patients lacking capacity where the treatment would conflict with either a valid and applicable advance decision, or a decision of a donee, deputy or Court of Protection. There must be a "compelling reason" to give treatment in these circumstances and SOAD certification must be obtained before treatment can be given.

Status: Not yet in force

Statutory care and treatment plans will be introduced for all patients detained under the MHA in England (subject to some exclusions), to give patients a clear and personalised strategy to progress them towards recovery and discharge from the Act. Similar such plans are already in place in Wales.

Advance Choice Documents (ACDs) will be introduced – a written statement setting out a person's decisions, wishes and feelings, to be referred to in the future if they lack capacity to make the relevant decisions.Clinicians must have regard to these documents when providing care and treatment under the MHA, but they are not legally binding.

There will be duties on NHS England, Integrated Care Boards and Local Health Boards to provide information and support people to create ACDs.

Status: Not yet in force

The MHA 2025 replaces the nearest relative with a new statutory role: the nominated person (NP), who can be chosen by the patient at any time when they have capacity or competence to do so, subject to eligibility requirements.

The NP has the same rights and powers as nearest relatives, but will have additional rights, such as to be consulted about statutory care and treatment plans, renewals and extensions of the patient’s detention and transfers between hospitals, and the power to object to the use of a CTO.

There are rules on what happens where a person lacks capacity and special rules for children.

Status: Not yet in force

Section 2 patients can apply to the Tribunal within 21 days of detention (rather than 14 days); section 3 patients can apply within the first three months of detention (reflecting the shortened initial detention period) and then once during each subsequent period of detention – as the initial periods of detention are shorter, there will be more opportunities to apply.

The Act extends the existing referral system to increase the frequency and widen the group of patients in respect of whom referrals to the Tribunal must be made (“automatic referrals”). These changes are intended to ensure patients have greater access to the Tribunal.

Status: Not yet in force

Changes to automatic referrals for conditionally discharged restricted patients subject to a deprivation of liberty already in force (as of 18 February 2026). Other automatic referral changes not yet in force.

The Mental Health Tribunal and Secretary of State for Justice have a new power to impose conditions that amount to a deprivation of liberty (DoL) on a restricted patient as part of conditional discharge – known as “supervised discharge”. DoL conditions can only be imposed if certain conditions are met.

There are new Tribunal eligibility periods for conditionally discharged restricted patients, both subject to a DoL and not subject to a DoL.

Automatic referrals by the Secretary of State for Justice in relation to supervised discharge patients extended.

The Act aims to speed up the transfer of mentally disordered prisoners to hospitals by introducing a statutory time limit of 28 days (which is not yet in force).

Status: In force from 18 February 2026

The 2025 Act extends the legal duties of the Human Rights Act to private care providers when they are providing aftercare or inpatient mental health care services that have been arranged or paid for by an NHS body.

Status: In force from 6 April 2026

The 2025 Act removes police stations from the definition of "places of safety" for the purposes of sections 135 and 136.

The Act also ends the use of prison as a place of safety for people in contact with the criminal justice system.

Status: Not yet in force

The 2025 Act amends section 117 to provide that the responsible after-care bodies must give written notice to a patient in order to discharge them from after-care services.

New "deeming provisions" clarify which local authority is responsible when a person is placed out of area – meaning the placing authority generally remains responsible.

Status: Not yet in force