In an effort to free up officer resources, the Met Police will stop responding to emergency mental health calls starting in September. Only in cases where there is a “immediate threat to life” will the London force respond to 999 calls about mental health. According to the Guardian, Met Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley wrote to health and social care services last week.
But the chief executive of mental health charity Mind has expressed “major concerns” over the plan. Police forces across Great Britain have seen a significant rise in the number of mental health incidents they have dealt with in the past five years. Some police chiefs believe that the rise in mental health calls is due to the perception of police as the first resort for people in a crisis, as well as a lack of community capacity to address the growing demands of mental health.
“Redress the Imbalance of Responsibility”
As first reported by the Guardian, the Met says it is looking to “redress the imbalance of responsibility”, which often sees police officers “left delivering health responsibilities”. But Sarah Hughes of Mind has warned there is not enough capacity in other public services to replace the work police officers currently do.
During her appearance on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, she expressed her lack of conviction regarding the system’s adequacy to accommodate a shift to this new approach. “We’ve got a huge way to go until the system is working together on behalf of very distressed individuals.” She said the Met and NHS “urgently need to sit down together and work out a plan in response to these major concerns”.
The charity has also cautioned that decades of chronic underfunding have affected mental health services, and has called for making any changes carefully and collectively to ensure that no one lacks support.
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”. And police officers are estimated to spend 20-40% of their time dealing with such incidents.