Reports Met Police to stop responding to some mental health emergencies “disturbing”

The Metropolitan Police has said it will no longer attend emergency mental health calls unless there is a threat to life.

Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley suggested in a letter to health and social care partners that the force would only attend mental health 999 calls where there is an "immediate threat to life" after 31 August.

The Right Person, Right Care (RPRC) scheme has been proposed to avoid officers being diverted from their core role of fighting crime and ensure patients who need medical experts are not being failed when a police officer attends instead.

Sir Rowley said that, currently, officers are “failing Londoners twice”.

“We are failing them first by sending police officers, not medical professionals, to those in mental health crisis, and expecting them to do their best in circumstances where they are not the right people to be dealing with the patient.

“We are failing Londoners a second time by taking large amounts of officer time away from preventing and solving crime, as well as dealing properly with victims, in order to fill gaps for others.”

However, mental health charities and sector leaders have urged caution with the plans.

Chief Executive of the Centre for Mental Health Andy Bell said the plans were “disturbing”.

“A mental health emergency is a health emergency and it rightly requires a health response,” Bell said. “Just like a physical health emergency, we should expect that if we have a mental health crisis we would be seen quickly by trained mental health workers in places that are safe, without the need for police intervention.”

“However, since 2013 preventative public health services have been cut by 24% whilst NHS and social care has come under increasing pressure with rising demand and a shrinking workforce.

Bell added that the public’s mental health has deteriorated as poverty and other pressures have worsened and called for sufficiently resourced health and social services to reduce levels of police involvement when someone requires urgent care.

“When emergencies do happen, we need health care, social services, ambulance services and the police to work together to ensure people get immediate help in a safe place. And any arrangements that are put in place for responding to mental health crises must be based on robust evidence of what works best for the patients themselves.”

Meanwhile, the Approved Mental Health Professionals (AMHP) Leads Network “strongly advocated” for more collaboration in national or regional implementation of changes to police responses in mental health situations.

Pointing to other regions already employing such measures, the group said in a statement it was supportive of the aims of the approach but was “concerned at the speed in which the Met is unilaterally intending to act.”

“We as a network recognise that the impact on Police time is usually a result of delays in access to health-based resource and we are keen to support any efforts to improve this as often these same delays impact on AMHP services and the individuals we aim to support.

“We know these delays persist despite many recently announced policy developments in mental health crisis care and are keen to work in partnership to identify ways in which they can be improved for *all* services working in mental health crisis situations – the vast majority of which are not attended by the police.

“While we broadly support the aim to reduce or stop the use of police where more appropriate support is or should be available to support an individual in distress, this support is based on the view that police time needs to be free to continue to attend mental health related incidents in situations where there is no other appropriate agency to undertake the role required.”

The group added that members in areas where similar policies have been introduced have expressed concern that in practice, the changes may mean that people with protected characteristics under the Equalities Act are being excluded from receiving the same level of support as others.

AMHPs added that there are many situations that meet the threshold for police attendance but these are being declined “due to poor knowledge by call agents of the nuances of the law, agreements and duties or over-zealous application of the strategy”.

“The Network calls for all agencies in mental health crisis care to work in genuine partnership and have equal influence to the development of systems able to manage the demands in mental health crisis care against the resource pressures which show no sign of decreasing. These should ultimately focus on improving the experiences of vulnerable people in distress, over and above that of any one agency affected by delays.”

Similarly, Sarah Hughes, CEO of mental health charity Mind, said that people with mental health problems should be at the heart of any change to the support they receive in a crisis.

“It is right to say that when people are in a mental health crisis, they are often at their most vulnerable, so really need the right support. It is also right to say that mental health is core police business, for example, only the police can publicly section people in mental health crisis.

“The police can only properly help people with the right support from the whole system. The NHS needs sufficient resourcing so that people in crisis are treated quickly and in a therapeutic environment.

“Any changes to supporting people in a mental health crisis need to be thought through carefully and collectively so that no one is left without support. New plans need to be rolled out with enough time to make sure strong partnerships are built at a local level so that people with mental health problems don’t pay the price for this kind of change.”