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Social workers' role in assessments of whether to detain patients suffering from mental health problems will not be watered down under the draft mental health bill, a department of health official told delegates at the Community Care Live conference, writes Katie Leason.

Adrian Sieff, head of mental health legislation at the doh, said he “expected the majority of approved mental health professionals (AMHPs) to be social workers, allaying fears they would lose their influence.

However, he added that enabling other workers to be able to also take on the AMHP role would help relieve resource and workforce pressures.

Sieff defended the proposed legislation and pleaded with delegates to “put on different glasses, take a different perspective and look at things differently”. But he later admitted that the bill was being “refined” in light of the consultation responses.

He conceded that many of the concerns surrounding the bill were “legitimate”.

Meanwhile, Robert McLean, chairperson of the approved social worker interest group, claimed that three quarters of the responses to the government’s consultation on the bill thought the role of the ASW should remain and that the proposed legislation was medically driven.

Later, Paul Farmer, chair of the Mental Health Alliance, said that the bill was “too important to be kicked around as a political football”, adding that compulsion should always be seen as the last resort.