Mental health: “Police officers will never turn away from those that need help”

THE number of mental health incidents dealt with by police has risen by more than a quarter in four years, recent research from the BBC has shown.

There were 494,159 mental health related incidents in 2018, a 28% increase from the 385,206 incidents recorded in 2014.

The NHS needs to do more to lead on these incidents, but the police service will always have a role, the Essex Police Federation Chairman has said.

Steve Taylor said: “Whenever people are in crisis and they need help, we should never feel like we have to turn them away and say, ‘It’s not our job, it’s not what we’re here to do’. But I do accept we shouldn’t be leading on it.

“I do accept that the NHS is the primary care provider for people in mental health crisis. But there’s no escaping that certain serious elements of that crisis are going to involve the police, and we can’t simply devolve ourselves of that because we’ve got a lot on our plate.

“So yes, it is an issue for the police to tackle. But equally it’s an issue the NHS should ideally be leading on. We should be working with the NHS as a partner in this, and being innovative as to how we achieve that. But yeah, it is something that we have to continue tackling.”

The police pick up a mental-health related call on average every two minutes, a report by HMIC found last year.

Steve added: “Whether or not an incident’s classified as a crime incident or a mental health incident or a social services incident, whatever it’s classified at the end of the day we must never forget that at the front end of that cry for help, it’s exactly that, it’s people that need help. So it’s important that when they need help, we are there to help in whatever way we can, be that light-touch, signposting to other partners, or taking more of that on ourselves, and it’s fair to say that in recent years we have taken a lot of mental health work in particular on because of gaps in the NHS’s provision. That’s just a reality.”