Ms Ber Grogan:

As it is one of our main asks, I have been trying to do much more research on it. Mental Health Reform has been raising this since 2012. We did a paper on complaints mechanisms. In Wales, there are concerns teams to which people can complain. In New Zealand, there is an independent advocate called the health and disability commissioner who is the ombudsperson for mental health. In 2018, the World Health Organization's European region did a piece about the rights and standards of care for institutional care. Some 28 countries in that report have different independent complaints mechanisms. Even though the heads of the Bill state people should be informed of the facility's complaints mechanisms, that does not go far enough at all.

In the session with the Mental Health Commission, Deputy Ward asked about what recourse or routes there were for the people refused care. In its submission on the heads of the Bill, Mental Health Reform has also called for the capture of the data of people who cannot get community-level care to find out who is being missed. That may be separate from the independent complaints mechanism and complete wishful thinking that we would have these data on people who are not accessing community care. However, if people are turned away from emergency departments, EDs, or from one that does not have the national clinical programme, will those data be captured and where can those people go if they feel their rights are not being met?