Use of police cells during mental health crises to be halved

Monday, March 24, 2014 SPORK! 0 Comments

• Alan Travis, home affairs editor
• The Guardian, Monday 17 February 2014
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• The number of times police cells are used as a place of safety for people having a mental health crisis is intended to be halved under a far-reaching agreement between police, mental health trusts and paramedics.
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• The "crisis care concordat" signed by 22 national organisations, including the Department of Health, the Home Office and the charity Mind, is aimed at securing dramatic improvements in the treatment of people having a mental heath crisis.
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• The concordat suggests that health-based places of safety and beds should be available all the time. It says police custody should not be used because mental health services are not available, and police cars and other vehicles should not be used as ambulances to transfer patients. "We want to see the number of occasions police cells are used as a place of safety for people in mental health crisis halved compared with 2011-12," it says.