Police plan to attend fewer mental health callouts could be ‘dangerous’, charity warns

Dr Sarah Hughes, Chief Executive of Mind, spoke out after the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) said officers will only respond to mental health incidents when there is “a significant safety risk or crime being committed”.

Officers currently wait with people detained under the Mental Health Act for an average of 12 hours before receiving medical care, but this will be cut to a one-hour handover window.

NPCC said the move will save officers around one million hours a year, as many incidents will be referred to healthcare workers who are “best placed” to provide support.

The approach, known as Right Care Right Person, was developed by Humberside Police in 2021 and it is already used by South Yorkshire Police and North Yorkshire Police.

But Dr Hughes said the announcement “goes nowhere near offering enough guarantees that these changes will be introduced safely”.

“It is simply impossible to take a million hours of support out of the system without replacing it with investment and mental health services are not resourced to step up overnight,” she said.

“These changes must be introduced slowly and carefully, so no one is abandoned without support.

“It would also be dangerous for forces to step back while local communities and health systems work out how to respond – we are already hearing from local Minds who have concerns about how this is playing out.

“We are also deeply concerned that the Met Police still haven’t publicly reversed their decision to stop responding to mental health related emergency calls if they are deemed not life threatening, from the end of August.

“In the meantime, an emergency is an emergency, and the public cannot hold this risk in the absence of a workable approach from all the authorities we all trust to look after us in an emergency.”

Policing minister Chris Philp said it is up to each of the 43 police forces in England and Wales along with healthcare boards to work out when and how to put the changes into place.

The Tory Minister also said there will be £2.3bn of additional funding per year for mental health services by April 2024, and £150m to build new facilities.

By March 2024, it is expected that 24-hour mental health crisis phone lines will be in place across England and Wales, and over the next two years funding is being put in place for mental health ambulances.

According to the Government, the new approach to mental health callouts saved officers in Humberside an average of around 1,400 hours per month.

That equates to an estimated one million hours per year nationally if similar savings are seen across all forces.

Rachel Bacon, the National Police Chiefs’ Council lead for policing and mental health, said that officers would always attend where there was a threat to life or someone was in immediate danger.

“Individuals told us that the attendance of police officers when they are experiencing health or social care issues has a negative impact and they feel criminalised,” she said.

“It is often the case that attending officers are unable to provide the services which are needed to resolve the situation effectively.

“There is broad consensus that the police’s primary purpose is to maintain peace and to prevent and detect crime. That is what the public rightly expect us to do.”