2. c. 72) was an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom concerning England and Wales which had, as its main objectives, to abolish the distinction between psychiatric hospitals and other types of hospitals and to deinstituitionalise mental health patients and see them treated more by community care.

[3] Their treatment was considered by the 1957 Percy Commission and the act resulted from its deliberations.

[5] One of the changes introduced by the Act was the abolishment of the category of "moral imbecile".

[6] The category, which had been introduced in the 1913 Act, had been defined in such vague terms that it had allowed mothers of illegitimate children, especially in case of repeated births out of wedlock, to be regarded as "moral imbeciles" and thus to be placed in an institution for defectives or to be placed under guardianship.

[7] The 1959 version was repealed after the Mental Health Act 1983 was approved.