LETTERS: The goal is to keep mentally ill patients out of institutions

From Professor Elaine Murphy and others Sir: We would like to correct the misunderstanding by Liz Sayce of Mind and Neil Confrey (Letters, 17 January) that the South Devon Inquiry team recommended compulsory medical treatment in people's homes. We are asstrongly opposed to that as Mind, and almost all other organisations in the mental health field. All our recommendations are designed around improving patient choice and access to high-quality, appropriate services.

Our proposals for a Community Care Plan Order bear many similarities to Tessa Jowell MP's private members bill. We agree that the priority should be given to delivering better, comprehensive mental health services. Compulsory treatment should only be given in the context of a total care plan, and our proposals call for greater rather than lesser controls on the conditions in which compulsory treatment can be given.

Our proposals would allow treatment only at designated medical facilities. Is it not much more preferable to treat people who must receive treatment without the requirement to first detain them, often unnecessarily, in a hospital?

Yours faithfully, ELAINE MURPHY LOUIS BLOM-COOPER HELEN HALLY Division of Psychiatry and Psychology Guy's and St Thomas's Medical School London, SE1

18 January