What happens if police no longer respond to mental health calls?
What happens if police no longer respond to mental health calls?
From this September, the Metropolitan Police will no longer attend situations relating to mental ill-health (unless there is a clear threat to life), allowing them to focus on crime.
The Met commissioner has argued that in London alone officers — untrained in dealing with mental health — are needing to spend time “babysitting” people between 500 and 600 times a month. They spend an average of 10 hours with each patient before they are sectioned under the Mental Health Act.
Back to the NHS
Mental health service leaders don’t believe the NHS is in a position to cope with any new responsibilities. “I think it would be really, really dangerous if the police were just to unilaterally withdraw from attending mental health crisis calls right now,” said Former Inspector of Constabulary Zoe Billingham, now chair of NHS mental health services for Norfolk and Suffolk.
Sarah Hughes, chief executive of Mind, said: “I am not persuaded we have got enough in the system to tolerate a shift to this new approach. I think we’ve got a huge way to go before the system is working together on behalf of very distressed individuals.”
The need for options
EAPA UK Chair, Karl Bennett said: “The reason why police forces receive so many calls relating to mental health is because people just don’t know who to turn to. In a crisis it’s not clear who’s best placed to provide immediate support. NHS services can be difficult to access and involve long waiting times.
“This is why EAPs have seen such steep increases in demand, particularly when it comes to serious red flag cases and more demand for ongoing support from counselling. In this context, EAPs are increasingly valuable to employers and their staff, but can only ever be one part of the system of services.
“The sheer scale of the challenge around mental health needs to be acknowledged, looking at how services can best work together, the combination of EAPs, the NHS, the police and access to other professional expertise. The success of the Humberside Police initiative, Right Care, Right Person, is a good example of how this can work. Humberside uses a triage system, where calls relating to mental health are directed to professionals from Mind in the control room to make an initial assessment, similar to the role played by EAP helplines, and then directed to the most appropriate service. 1,100 hours of police time are said to be saved each month.”