Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what progress has been made to eliminate the use of police cells as a place of safety for children and adults experiencing a mental health crisis.

The Government is taking action to prevent the inappropriate use of police cells as a place of safety under the Mental Health Act 1983.

The Government has an ambition to reduce this practice by 50% this year – and to see how police and health colleagues can work together so that it does not happen at all to children and young people.

Last year the number of people taken to police cells as places of safety fell significantly, from 8,667 in 2011-12 to 6,028 in 2013-14. The police have told us that between the six months of April and September this year there have been 2,282 such cases – which, if maintained over the rest of the year, would result in a further 24% decrease in use of cells over last year. At the same time the use of health-based places of safety increased by 3,019 uses between 2012-13 and 2013-14.

This puts us well on track to achieve our aim of reducing the 2011-12 figure of 8,667 uses of police cells by half in 2014-15.

There was a small reduction of 10% in the numbers of children who were taken to a police cell as a place of safety – for 2013-14 this happened in 236 cases, and for 2012-13 this happened in 263 cases.

In February, we published a Crisis Care Concordat to make sure people in crisis get the help they need. All localities are working together to complete local crisis declarations agreed by all the local relevant agencies, by the end of the year.

The concordat states a clear expectation that “police custody is never used as a place of safety” for under-18s, except in very exceptional circumstances where a police officer makes the decision that immediate safety of a child or young person requires it.

In conjunction with the Home Office, the Department of Health has conducted a review of Section 135 and Section 136 of the Mental Health Act 1983. This was published on 18 December 2014.

The new Children and Young People's Mental Health and Well-Being Taskforce will also be looking at the issue of under 18s being detained in police custody as part of its Access and Prevention work.