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Ethnic minorities have been treated woefully by mental health services for too long. However, the government has now published its Delivering Race Equality strategy to address this situation. The question is, do the proposals go far enough?

Without doubt, the final draft is an improvement on the original, which failed to acknowledge the structural change that is needed in the whole mental health system. But, despite the advances, fundamental problems remain with the strategy, and also with the government's delayed response to the David Bennett inquiry which was combined with the strategy and published alongside.

First, there is a distinct lack of ministerial acknowledgement of any institutional racism in the NHS. The report explains this by saying "it is possible to hide behind the label of institutional racism - to confuse the act of recognising it with real action and reform". But this is a retrogressive step back from the hard truths in the McPherson report into the death of Stephen Lawrence. The government has also missed an opportunity to build bridges with the ethnic minority communities that have been alienated from the mental health system by a history of poor treatment.

The emphasis on trusts being accountable for providing services to meet local need is welcome, but there is an obvious sticking point - the "tacking on" of refugees and asylum seekers. That these groups have been included is an improvement on the original draft, but there is little detail about how the specific mental health issues of these groups will be met.

Most worrying, however, is the government's rejection of the three-minute maximum for restraining a person in a prone position, lying face down on the floor. Prolonged use of restraint was a key factor in the death of Bennett, and is believed to have contributed to the deaths of others in secure settings.

Surely the disproportionate numbers of people from ethnic minorities dying in such circumstances must be the priority of any action plan. How else can the government meaningfully challenge ethnic inequality in the mental health system?

Marcel Vige is development manager at Diverse Minds, the ethnic minority unit of mental health charity Mind.