Professor Matthew Sadlier:

I might come in on that. As practitioners, what we want is clarity and a lack of ambiguity. We want terminology that is defined and that we can use. While I appreciate the non-stigmatising reasons for using words such as "mental health difficulties", it becomes difficult if you start trying to put legal definitions on phrases that have other definitions in common parlance. That is why if we are introducing words into this legislation, we would like to make sure they are not ambiguous and that there are very good definitions of it.

The most frustrating part as a clinician is that I am not a lawyer; I am here to treat patients. Having this argument as to whether we can admit this patient and asking whether their problem is serious or immediate and what do these terms mean, that is, questioning whether this is a mental illness or a mental heath difficulty or whatever, these are issues getting in the way of treating patients. It is about having unambiguous language and making sure things are clearly defined for practical applications on the ground so we can say this person should be admitted under legislation or that person should not be and to remove that ambiguity.