Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what progress has been made in 2015 towards ensuring that people with mental health issues are not detained in police cells because no hospital bed is available for them.

According to data from the National Police Chiefs’ Council, the number of people detained in police custody as a place of safety under section 136 of the Mental Health Act 1983 fell by 34% in England between 2013-14 and 2014-15. This corresponds to an increase in the use of hospital-based places of safety of 14%, according to the Health & Social Care Information Centre. The figure amounts to a 54% reduction in the use of police custody since 2011-12, surpassing the ambition of a 50% reduction set out in the Government’s Mental Health Crisis Care Concordat, which was published in February 2014 and is attached. Existing guidance in the Concordat and the Mental Health Act Code of Practice makes it clear that police custody should only be used as a place of safety in exceptional circumstances.

The Concordat – signed by over 25 national organisations – has led to the establishment of 96 local groups covering the entirety of England, consisting of health, policing and local authority partners who have pledged to work together to improve mental health crisis care and set out detailed, publicly available plans, including to reduce the use of police custody for those detained under the Act.

However, although significant progress has been made, the Government has signalled its intention to go further by amending legislation through the forthcoming Police and Criminal Justice Bill, so that, among other measures, police custody can never be used as a place of safety for under-18s and so custody can only be used for adults in the most exceptional circumstances.

Moreover, in May this year the Home Secretary announced that the Government would invest up to an additional £15 million in 2016-17 to reduce the use of police custody as a place of safety. Further announcements around this will be made shortly.