News over the weekend suggests the Metropolitan Police has written to health partners in London, giving them 99 days for to come up with plans for the police to withdraw responses from emergency mental health calls which do not involve an immediate threat to life.
It seems a meeting has a been set with a senior Metropolitan Police officer for some point before the 99-day deadline where NHS organisations have been asked to come with plans for how the NHS will ensure responses where the police service has determined that no obligation exists for them to provide a response, based on legal advice.
Some reaction to the announcement raised concern about the detail of how this will work and whether or not the NHS has time to prepare for its implications. As the day progressed, further organisations added their voice to those concerns, including a full statement by Dr Adrian James, President of the Royal College of Psychiatrists.
There is also a new editorial in the Guardian, whose journalist Vikram Dodd broke the original story.
This will be worth watching – social media is also full of further reaction from health professionals, lawyers and police officers as well as academics and most importantly of all: those of us whose lives are affected by our mental health.
UPDATE (280723) — the Independent claims to have seen a letter in which the Metropolitan Police states it has relaxed its ‘deadline’ to NHS partners and now accepts this programme will need to be brought in over “two or three years”.
Maybe that was the plan all along but they needed to get the horses running?! Who knows.
Winner of the President’s Medal,
the Royal College of Psychiatrists.
Winner of the Mind Digital Media Award
All views expressed are my own – they do not represent the views of any organisation.
(c) Michael Brown, 2023
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Government legislation website – www.legislation.gov.uk
Mental Health Cop 