The Confederation Mental Health Spain has positively assessed the entry into force of Law 4/2026, which incorporates a new article that specifies how health and care interventions in the field of mental health should be developed, in order to ensure respect for the rights of people with mental health problems.
The organization emphasizes that the new regulation places the person at the center of the action and establishes that interventions must be based "on free and informed consent, in accordance with the legislation on patient autonomy, and respect the wishes, will, and preferences of the person."
The legal text indicates that protocolized involuntary interventions must be avoided without an individualized assessment, as well as the unjustified maintenance of non-consented measures and their use for punitive or disciplinary purposes.
Likewise, it determines that mechanical restraints or containment may only be considered in exceptional circumstances. The law also expands the guidelines on how involuntary admissions should be carried out, already provided for in a higher-ranking norm such as the Civil Procedure Law (article 763), which will continue to require prior judicial authorization, except when urgency requires immediate admission.
"We are aware that this regulation is causing uncertainty among some sectors especially linked to daily practice, but we must value this advance as the extension of protection to people with mental health problems in the situations where they are most vulnerable, it is a matter of rights for them and for anyone who may find themselves in a similar situation," pointed out the president of the Confederation Mental Health Spain, Nel González.
"We are going to collaborate and support the Ministry so that this regulation, which we have been advocating for years from the Confederation, is developed with all the necessary guarantees for all parties involved," he added.
According to the report "The situation of mental health in Spain," disseminated in 2023 by the Confederation Mental Health Spain and the Mutua Madrileña Foundation, 60.1 percent of people with a mental health diagnosis have undergone involuntary admission, while 40.3 percent received little or no clear, sufficient, and understandable information about their disorder.
The confederation reiterates that for years it has been denouncing the negative consequences of the use of coercive measures in mental health care and defending a community model, centered on human rights and the dignity of people.