Urgent answers needed on funding for new police mental health strategy

The cross-party health and social care committee has urged the health secretary to provide urgent answers on funding to support the national roll-out of the ‘Right Care, Right Person’ (RCRP) mental health strategy.

One of the reasons this strategy was introduced was to change the way emergency services respond to mental health calls, meaning police will nit be automatically the first responders. 

RCRP was developed by Humberside Police and is being rolled out across the UK as part of ongoing work between police forces, health providers and the government. 

MPs said the government must end uncertainty about funding for the delivery of RCRP. The committee expressed concerned that police forces across the country are proceeding with implementation regardless of the readiness of health systems and questions over where the necessary funding, estimated at £260m, will come from.  

In addition, the committee also raised concerns over what appears to be ‘a total lack of evaluation in terms of health outcomes or services’. MPs called for robust monitoring and evaluation to be put in place ‘to ensure patient safety, consistency and that people don’t fall through the cracks’. 

Committee chair Steve Brine said: ‘I’m encouraged that NHS England is asking all Integrated Care Boards about the challenges they anticipate on providing these services and what resources will be needed. This work cannot happen quickly enough.

‘We’re calling on the government to provide much needed certainty about funding for the roll-out of RCRP in this month’s Autumn Statement on the key question about whether new funding will be provided, or whether it will need to be found from existing budgets.

‘It is right that people experiencing a crisis receive the right care from the most appropriate person. However, measures to evaluate the success of this new national model from a health perspective appear to be missing. It’s not enough to know that the changes will save police officer hours, they must also be demonstrably serving the interests of the patients who rely on mental health services in their hour of need.’

London’s Metropolitan Police, the country’s largest police force, adopted the model at the start of November, amid widespread concerns among police chiefs that attending mental health calls was putting police resources under strain.

Under RCRP, police officers will continue to attend calls where there is an immediate risk to life, but will not attend medical calls where a healthcare professional is deemed more appropriate following triaging by call handlers.

In addition, police officers will:

• No longer attend welfare checks for people who have missed a planned health appointment, check whether they have taken their medication, or to check on a person when the health or social care agency is not working
• Will not look for people who have walked out of mental health facilities or left hospital unless there is a policing reason
• Always call for an ambulance to transport people who have been sectioned under the Mental Health Act instead of using a police van

Image: Michael Förtsch

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