CAMHS to come under formal regulation for first time

The Mental Health Act 2026 provides for the regulation of registered acute mental health centres, registered community mental health centres and registered community mental health services. It establishes a Register of community mental health services alongside registers for acute and community mental health centres, bringing community provision within the statutory registration system.

A community mental health service must apply for registration, and the Commission may register the service, register it subject to conditions it attaches, or refuse registration. The Commission may visit a service that has applied for registration within a prescribed period and take its findings into consideration when assessing the application.

Registration depends on the Commission being satisfied about the registered person, compliance by the registered proprietor and the responsible person criteria. Where registration is granted, the Commission issues a certificate specifying the service name, the premises concerned, any conditions, and the dates on which registration takes effect and ends.

The extension matters because, as Farrelly put it, most people receiving mental health care are not in inpatient centres but in community residences and receiving services there. Formal standards, registration and inspection will for the first time give those settings a public benchmark for what people using services and their families should expect.

Farrelly linked the change to the Government's emphasis on care outside hospitals and on earlier intervention. He said: "So now we know with these centres, we have the standards there, we'll be able to register these centres, inspect them and really ensure and drive which is the Government priority services out into where we live in the community and early."

He pointed to Commission research on inpatient use in support of that direction, saying: "in our latest research, we found that 26% of people in inpatient beds would be better served out in the community receiving services." The Act continues in being the Mental Health Commission and the Inspector of Mental Health Services, the institutions that will carry out registration, inspection and monitoring.

Expected next step: This may change.

Asked about failures in oversight, risk management and staffing in CAMHS services, Farrelly said these concerns will be addressed as part of the Act. The comment presents the new registration and standards regime as the mechanism for addressing long-running questions about consistency and safety in children's services.

He expressed confidence that formal standards would lift quality over time for community and CAMHS provision. He said: "So I've no doubt, we've seen it before, that standards when you put them in place improve services and our expectation is the same will happen here." He said the standards will create a benchmark for services and for the public on what a good service looks like.

The next step is dedicated standards for CAMHS. Farrelly said: "We've also been asked by the minister to develop the CAMHS standards and we will have those standards at the start of the new year." Registration and inspection of community services will then proceed as the Act is implemented.