The Lunacy Act's most important provision was a change in the status of mentally ill people to patients.

The institutions were called asylums and they gave refuge where mental illness could receive proper treatment.

[3] The Act established the Commissioners in Lunacy to inspect plans for asylums on behalf of the Home Secretary (s.3).

The Act required asylums, other than Bethlem Hospital, to be registered with the commission, to have written regulations and to have a resident physician (s.42).

It made a point of reaching out to patients in workhouses and prisons and getting them to the proper institutions where they could be treated.

It also focused on "single lunatics" who were not connected with any prisons or workhouse but needed psychiatric care.

It monitored the treatment and mental condition of patients whom the commission could not remove from prisons and workhouses.

The Lunacy Act itself was amended several times after its conception, including by the Lunatic Asylums, etc.

[5] When the Lunacy Act was passed in 1845, there were many questions raised about what to do with children in poor mental health.