THE Police Service is doing a \u201cgood job in difficult circumstances\u201d but should not be left to \u201cpick up the pieces of a broken mental health system\u201d, an official report has found.<\/p>\n
The report from Her Majesty\u2019s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services said there needs to be a \u201cradical re-think\u201d to find a solution to the national crisis.<\/p>\n
HM Inspector of Constabulary Zo\u00eb Billingham, author of \u201cPolicing and Mental Health: Picking Up the Pieces\u201d said: \u201cPolice officers naturally want to respond and do their best to support vulnerable people when they ask for help. And we found that police officers respond to those with mental health problems with care and compassion.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut we cannot expect the police to pick up the pieces of a broken mental health system. Over-stretched and all-too-often overwhelmed police officers can\u2019t always respond appropriately, and people in mental health crisis don\u2019t always get the help they need.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said the HMICFRS had \u201cgrave concerns\u201d about the amount of times police officers are expected to resolve mental health problems, and called for \u201cfundamental change\u201d.<\/p>\n
The report found that demand on the police service is increasing, despite the fact that just two percent of people surveyed felt it was the police\u2019s responsibility to respond to mental health calls. Meanwhile, 70% of respondents felt it was the main responsibility of the health services to deal with people with mental health problems.<\/p>\n
The report found strong leadership and governance on mental health across most forces. And police officers had a good understanding of how to respond to those with mental health problems and feedback from partner organisations recognised the empathy officers showed in supporting those with mental health problems, it said.<\/p>\n
Ms Billingham added: \u201cPeople in crisis with mental health problems need expert support \u2013 support that can\u2019t be carried out in the back of a police car or by locking them into a police cell. All too often, the system is failing people when they most need help. This is not a problem that the police alone can solve. Other services need to stop relying on the 24\/7 availability of the police.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
THE Police Service is doing a \u201cgood job in difficult circumstances\u201d but should not be left to \u201cpick up the pieces of a broken mental health system\u201d, an official report\u2026 read more →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1935,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4925"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4925"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4925\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4929,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4925\/revisions\/4929"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1935"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}