An innovative scheme is taking the pressure off emergency services and take a more holistic approach to the care of people with mental health issues.
The Mental Health Triage Car Scheme involves mental health professionals providing on the spot advice to police officers who are dealing with people in crisis. This can include an opinion on a person’s condition, or appropriate information sharing about a person’s health history.
The aim is, where possible, to help police officers make decisions, based on a clear understanding of the background. This has led to people receiving appropriate care more quickly, better outcomes and a reduction in the use of Section 136 of the Mental Health Act - an emergency power which allows the police to take a mental health sufferer to a place of safety.
The three Triage teams work in the evening in Merseyside between 4pm and midnight when other services are closed and people are more likely to experience problems. The scheme has brought about a drop in police issuing 136s and has hailed the scheme a great success.
We help all sorts of people with problems, it may be that they are contemplating suicide around the docks or on a bridge. Sometimes it’s alcohol related, a relationship break up perhaps. Other times hotels call us to disturbances. Often it’s a cry for help or even desperate feelings of loneliness.
Taking people to A&E takes up vital police and paramedic time which can be better used elsewhere. It was not uncommon for the police to spend hours waiting with someone in hospital by someone’s hospital bed. We aim to link those people to support services instead.
There has been a huge saving in manpower and the person in crisis gets the specific help they need from trained professionals who put a care plan in place which over time has proven to truly benefit them.
Merseyside Police says the Triage Car has revolutionised the police’s involvement with mental health.
Before Triage there was research undertaken which found that an average mental health call would take about six and a half hours to deal with. They had very few powers to actually help people so trying to organise an assessment of a person’s needs and a mental health professional out to help them was a very lengthy process.
Before Triage, just 25 per cent of people detained under the Mental Health Act went on to be admitted to hospital and another 25 per cent would receive a GP referral, now 80 per cent of referrals result in an appropriate care package being put in place.
The number of 136 detentions has been reduced by 40 per cent.
Officers on the front line tell us the triage car should be available 24 hours a day. In the past they had three options of how to deal with mental health issues, take them to A&E, try and persuade them to go voluntarily, or, as a last resort, do nothing. They found it extremely difficult to walk away often stuck between a rock and a hard place.