MPS to reduce ‘mental health burden’ on force

It comes as reports suggest that from September the force will respond to fewer emergency calls related to mental health incidents.

According to a letter seen by The Guardian, MPS Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley says his officers will not be attending thousands of calls they get every year to deal with mental health incidents.

The Guardian says he has given health and social care services a deadline of August 31 before the force “withdraws from health-related calls”, which will only be waived if a threat to life is feared.

Sir Mark said he believes the move is necessary and urgent because officers are being diverted from their core role of fighting crime and patients who need medical experts are being failed when a police officer attends instead.

In a speech last month, Policing Minister Chris Philp said police officers should not be expected to deal with mental health cases and be a “stop gap” for other agencies.

He said officers were “not mental health specialists” and should not “fill in for other emergency services” where there is no risk to life and no offence has been committed.

Almost two years ago, the Police Federation of England and Wales warned that urgent action was needed from the Government to “put an end to the police service being used to plug the gaps of underfunded mental health services”.

Police responding to mental health incidents have seen cases increase by up to five times over the past five years, according to a BBC Freedom of Information request in March.

The College of Policing defines a mental health incident as “any police incident thought to relate to someone’s mental health where their vulnerability is at the centre of the incident”.

The new scheme, known as ‘right care, right person’ (RCRP) has been trialled by Humberside Police, and helped the force save an estimated 15,000 work hours a year by passing mental health calls to other services.

A report by His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary, Fire and Rescue Services (HMICFRS) in November last year found patients were getting better treatment, and that police had freed up resources.

Roy Wilsher, HM Inspector of Constabulary, said: “The right care, right person approach means that vulnerable people receive the support they need from the right organisation. The force has experts within its control room to support those vulnerable people until help arrives.”

According the The Guardian, in his letter Sir Mark writes: “I have asked my team that the Met introduce RCRP this summer and withdraw from health related calls by no later than August 31.

“I appreciate this may be challenging, but for the reasons I have set out above, the status quo is untenable.”

He adds: “It is important to stress the urgency of implementing RCRP in London. Every day that we permit the status quo to remain we are collectively failing patients and are not setting officers up to succeed.

“In fact, we 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.”

Data from a national police study quoted in the letter shows officers spend almost a million hours a year waiting in hospitals for mental health patients to be assessed, the equivalent of attending 500,000 domestic abuse incidents or 600,000 burglaries.

Sir Mark claims in his letter that MPS officers spend 10,000 hours a month dealing with mental health issues, and that it takes up to 14 hours to hand a patient over to medical staff.

He also says there are “scores of cases a month” in which his officers are called when patients waiting for treatment walk out and are reported missing.

Sir Mark writes: “To illustrate further the pressing need for reform, on April 28/29, the Met received the highest number of 999 calls we have ever taken [9,292 calls]. Only 30 per cent of these calls were classed as crime related.

“The extent to which we are collectively failing Londoners and inappropriately placing demand on policing is very stark.”

Humberside Police estimates that RCRP has allowed it to reclaim seven per cent of officer time to be spent on crime fighting and prevention.

The HMICFRS report said the force had analysed its mental health and concern for welfare incidents and found that they were increasing.

“This was having a significant impact on the force’s ability to respond to other calls for service, such as domestic abuse,” said the inspectorate.

“The force told us that a substantial number of calls it received were from health or care settings, including 25,000 concerns for welfare calls per year. This accounted for 11 per cent of overall demand and an increase of 27 per cent over two years.

“The force worked with mental health and NHS services to establish who had the legal duty towards vulnerable people seeking help. It then decided which service was best positioned to provide care according to the needs of the individual.

“A service-level agreement was signed by all parties, with the caveat that any risk to life would always receive a police response.”

The programme was introduced in four phases during 2020 and 2021.

“Humberside Police found that, along with the public receiving more timely care from the most appropriate care provider, the programme has led to efficiency savings of 1,100 police hours per month,” the inspectorate said. This has been invested back into protecting vulnerable people.”

The force was the national winner of the UK Police Service of the Year 2022 award at the iESE Public Sector Transformation Awards.

The Government now intends for the scheme to be rolled out across the country.

Home Secretary Suella Braverman says there is a national consensus to work together to develop a National Partnership Agreement incorporating the principles of the RCRP operating model

She said the Department of Health and Social Care, Home Office, National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) NHS and the Ambulance Trust have been engaging on the National Partnership Agreement with police and health partners and experts.

The College of Policing and NPCC have also been working on a “smarter practice product” that is a detailed case study of Humberside’s application of the RCRP, said Ms Braverman in a letter to chief constables and police and crime commissioners in February.

A toolkit is being developed that will contain a range of products to assist forces in the implementation of the RCRP approach, which it is anticipated will be ready by next month.