Theresa May is keen that we know she cares about mental health. She told us so in her first speech as prime minister. She announced alterations to the Equalities Act to reduce workplace discrimination, roll out mental health workers in schools and recruit 10,000 more staff by 2020.

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Coinciding with the beginning of Mental Health Awareness Week she told the Sunday Times this week that, should she win the general election on 8 June she would replace “in its entirety the flawed Mental Health Act”, which “too often leads to detention, disproportionate effects and the forced treatment of vulnerable people”.

A new mental health bill sounds sweeping and decisive to the layperson, but the current Mental Health Act for England and Wales is mainly concerned with a specific but contentious element of mental health treatment: the legal processes and safeguards for detaining and treating a person without their consent if they are judged to threaten their own or others’ health or safety. When we talk about “sectioning” we are talking about the section of the Mental Health Act 1983 under which someone is held. It makes us feel uncomfortable; blurring the line between treatment and legal proceedings.

Right now, a “new mental health bill” is an entirely notional thing and one that would take years to create, especially with Brexit taking up parliamentary time. Were May to be given her blank slate, what might her government do to make things better?

The last revision of the Mental Health Act was in 2007. It added the right to an independent advocate while in hospital and, betraying its origin in the New Labour years when asbo-style thinking dominated social policy, it introduced the contentious community treatment orders, by which people discharged from hospital could be recalled if they did not follow the treatment prescribed to them.

If we really wanted change we could aim much higher: imagine a bill of rights for those experiencing mental distress. A future bill could enshrine in law an entitlement to adequate social security benefits for those too unwell to work. No one should experience poverty as a result of mental ill health. Few people have access to someone to fight their corner while in hospital or treatment since true independent advocacy has withered due to cuts. That could change.

Were May serious about reforming mental health care, she could set minimum standards to which all are entitled by law, including both inpatient and outpatient care. A future bill could guarantee that all stays in hospital were safe, free from prejudice and discrimination, and based upon the principle not just of reducing risk to the public but maximising the possibilities of healing and care for those requiring it. If the intention is to reduce admissions, this act could find ways to mitigate the disadvantages that those who are in serious mental health need face in housing, employment and education. The bill could lay out the provisions for those who wished to refuse treatment, and build new models of consent and care.

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No one really likes the Mental Health Act, with many viewing it as, at best, a necessary evil shot through with compromises between safety and care. Being deprived of your liberty when you are ill is distressing. It’s something that most of us will never experience but something that has a huge impact on those that do.

A new mental health bill could bring us so much more if we were brave. It could be a chance to create a covenant that commits our country to protecting, nurturing and healing those in distress. May’s intention is no doubt sincere but will be doubtless coloured by her own authoritarian instincts and her party’s instinct to shrink the state.