New Human Rights Act Protections in Outsourced Mental Health Services
On Monday 6 April, new legal human rights protections will be introduced to ensure that when mental health aftercare and treatment are outsourced by the NHS to private care providers, human rights must be respected, protected, and fulfilled.
This important change comes from a provision in the Mental Health Act 2025. Section 51 of the Act, which comes into force from 6 April, states that private providers of mental aftercare services and mental health treatments arranged and paid for by the NHS will be treated as 'public authorities'. This means they must act in a way that is compatible with the rights in the Human Rights Act wherever possible, and can be held accountable if this does not happen.
BIHR and our partners strongly supported this amendment when the Mental Health Act 2025 was progressing through Parliament last year. It resolves an important loophole in human rights protections for some people receiving mental health care, in response to the death of Paul Sammut, a man who was receiving mental health aftercare in a private care home.
This change is not just technical or legal. It creates clarity, strengthens accountability, closes a gap that placed people at risk, and reinforces the principle that human rights do not disappear when services are outsourced.
BIHR's work on mental health reform
On 18 December 2025, the new Mental Health Act became law. This marked a major milestone in mental health reform in England and Wales, following years of review, consultation, and debate. For BIHR, it also marked the outcome of sustained, strategic work to ensure that human rights and the voices of people with lived experience were not sidelined but central to the reform process.
For many years, BIHR has played a unique role in shaping Mental Health Act reform through bringing together Human Rights Act legal expertise, lived experience voices, and practical insight from our direct human rights change work within mental health services. Our work on the new Mental Health Act sits within our charity’s mission and values, the very simple but powerful principle that law and policy reform must be rooted in human rights and informed by those who have experience of the law in practice. This is particularly important within mental health care where the law must protect us when we are at our more vulnerable.
Working with partners to close a human rights loophole
One of the most significant tangible outcomes of BIHR’s work was securing stronger human rights protections in the final Act.
BIHR, our partners, and Lived Experience Experts played a central role in advocating for an amendment to close a loophole in the Human Rights Act that had been exposed by the case of a man known as Paul. The case highlighted how outsourcing public services to private providers could weaken people’s ability to rely on their human rights.
Sammut v Next Steps Mental Health Care [2024]
Paul was detained in hospital under the Mental Health Act. He was then moved into a private care home for aftercare. The NHS and his local council together arranged for and paid for this aftercare. In the care home, Paul was deprived of his liberty. He later died in the care home from pneumonia and intestinal issues related to a side effect of a medication he was taking. Paul’s family brought a case against both the care home and the NHS, saying they had breached his human rights. The court said that the care home was not carrying out a public function and so didn’t have a duty to protect Paul’s human rights.
We became aware of Paul Sammut's case at an early stage and immediately began analysing its implications for our work with providers, health and care decision-makers, and with people, families, and advocates. Drawing on our previous work on legal loopholes and the Care Act 2014, we recognised that the case did not resolve the underlying issue but instead exposed a misreading of the law, creating a further loophole. Our practical work with people receiving mental health care including aftercare meant we also understood the real-world risks this posed for those entitled to support.
We therefore undertook horizon-scanning to identify both the risks arising from the judgment and the opportunities to address them. When the new Government indicated it would revive the previously abandoned Mental Health Bill, we recognised a critical opportunity to close this loophole. We were well placed to act, bringing together our human rights expertise, lived-experience evidence, and established parliamentary and government relationships to pursue a solution.
Working alongside our Lived Experience Experts, the National Care Forum, care providers and user-led organisations across the UK, BIHR developed and submitted detailed briefings and evidence to Government and Parliament. We also submitted evidence to the Mental Health Bill Committee (the group of MPs responsible for examining the Bill line-by-line) supported by Scottish Care, Human Rights Consortium Scotland and Care Rights UK.
"Making sure the law is clear and consistent is also important to care providers; the Human Rights Act is not a burden but a tool for public body workers to help them support the rights and dignity of the people they work."
Joint evidence by BIHR and the National Care Forum to the Bill Committee
We supported amendments proposed in the House of Lords and pressed for clear legal recognition that mental health aftercare is a public function carrying human rights duties.
On 18 December 2025, the new Mental Health Act passed into law including Section 51 – the amendment supported by BIHR and our partners. This represents a meaningful step forward in protecting the human rights of people receiving mental health aftercare, regardless of who delivers that care.
Influencing practice change, from law to lived reality: BIHR’s role now
As the focus shifts from legal reform to legal implementation, BIHR will continue to work to ensure that human rights are not an afterthought but the foundation of mental health care. The new Mental Health Act shows what is possible when human rights and lived experience shape what’s put on paper, now we turn to practice.
Implementation of other provisions in the Act will take place over several years and will determine whether the promise of the new law becomes a lived reality. This is where BIHR’s role remains critical. We are uniquely placed to support implementation by translating complex legal change into practical, rights-based approaches for policymakers and practitioners together with people with lived experience.
We offer:
- Clear, accessible explainers that help people understand what the new law means for rights in practice.
- Training for mental health professionals on embedding Human Rights Act duties in day-to-day decision-making.
- Lived experience-led work to ensure implementation reflects real-world impacts and avoids repeating past harms.
- Convening spaces for learning and reflection, including webinars bringing together legal, policy and lived experience expertise.
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