In 2007 the treatability test was removed. The reason was to house people with "dangerous personality disorders" who were at risk committing a serious crime, which to me means murder not robbery or anything like that.
The treatability test was about their being treatment available. It was removed because of conditions which are considered intractable or untreatable. This allowed for the incarceration of people who were considered at risk of committing a serious crime. The judge and jury is the psychiatrist in this pre-crime system where no crime has definitely been committed. That's one of the core principles of the UK criminal justice system however the medico-legal framework allows this to be circumvented, bypassing all the systems of checks and balances in the UK justice system.
Deprivation of liberty without treatment is incarceration. The old treatability test wasn't actually about ensuring treatment was provided. It just had to be available I think though I don't know the law on that.
What I know is my personal experience of being sectioned. There is no treatment other than drugs. Nurses rarely spend time with patients (though this is changing at least). There's virtually no psychological therapy, bibliotherapy or really any effort to do anything to help other than wait for the drugs to kick in then turf the person out.
While under section for reasons of health a person must be given the highest levels of treatment because otherwise it's just incaceration. The taking of a person's liberty is the worst punishment available in the UK. No one has been hanged for ages. But the MHA 1983 amended in 2007 means psychiatric patients can be incacerated specifically because they are at risk of committing a serious crime but one they haven't done and a risk which is made by a psychiatrist with absolute power.
-- Don't let justice be the privilege of the elite. Support the Justice for All campaign http://www.justice-for-all.org.uk/
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