Mental Health Services
(asked on 27th March 2017) - View Source
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment he has made of the preparedness of clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) for the potential changes in the level of demand for mental health provision as a result of changes made in Chapter 4 of Part 4 of the Policing and Crime Act 2017; and what estimate he has made of the resources available to CCGs for preparing for those changes.
The Policing and Crime Act 2017 will change aspects of the operation of police powers under sections 135 and 136 of the Mental Health Act 1983, primarily to reduce further the use of police custody for people detained under these powers, and to make it unlawful for people aged under 18 to be taken to police cells as a place of safety.
This week I wrote, jointly with the Parliamentary under Secretary of State (Sarah Newton MP), to local Crisis Care Concordat Groups, Police and Crime Commissioners, and police Chief Constables to encourage them to work together to prepare at local level for the practical implications of these changes. A copy of the letter is attached.
The use of police custody for these mental health detentions has already reduced by 80% since 2011-12, driven by local partnerships of health, police and local authorities under the mental health Crisis Care Concordat. The National Health Service is responding to the increased demand for mental health services, last year NHS Digital reported that “The instances where section 136 of the act was used to bring a person to hospital as a place of safety increased by 3,562 (18%) to 22,965, compared to the year before (19,403). This rise should be viewed in the context of a fall of 56%, from 3,996 to 1,764 over the same period, in the use of police cells as a place of safety”.
The Government is allocating £15 million in funding across 40 Crisis Care Concordat partnerships to improve health based places of safety provision and ensure that people in mental health crisis are not detained in police stations. A further £15 million of funding has been announced to continue this work.
Source:
Inpatients formally detained in hospitals under the Mental Health Act 1983 and patients subject to Supervised Community Treatment: 2015/16, Annual figures. NHS Digital, 2016.