The Liberal Gun Club Forum

The Metropolitan police [Metropolitan Police Service/Scotland Yard] will no longer attend emergency calls related to mental health incidents, the force’s commissioner has said. In a letter seen by the Guardian, Sir Mark Rowley says he will order his officers not to attend thousands of calls they get every year to deal with mental health incidents. Rowley has given health and social care services a deadline of 31 August before the force starts its ban, which will only be waived if a threat to life is feared. The Met chief believes the move is necessary and urgent because officers are being diverted from their core role of fighting crime and patients who need medical experts are being failed when a police officer attends instead.

The plan could cause consternation among ambulance workers, paramedics and NHS staff who are already under pressure as a result of cuts and at a time when mental health services are already stretched. Rowley’s letter to the Met’s health and social care partners was sent on 24 May, giving them a 99-day deadline to plan for the change. Police and health chiefs have been talking about relieving the mental health burden on police under a new national scheme called "right care, right person" (RCRP). But the letter reveals that Britain’s most senior police officer has lost patience over the issue. He writes: “I have asked my team that the Met introduce RCRP this summer and withdraw from health related calls by no later than 31 August. “I appreciate this may be challenging, but for the reasons I have set out above, the status quo is untenable.”

Those reasons are set out in a section marked “impact on Londoners”, where Rowley writes: “It is important to stress the urgency of implementing RCRP in London. Every day that we permit the status quo to remain we are collectively failing patients and are not setting officers up to succeed. “In fact, we are failing Londoners twice. “We are failing them first by sending police officers, not medical professionals, to those in mental health crisis, and expecting them to do their best in circumstances where they are not the right people to be dealing with the patient. “We are failing Londoners a second time by taking large amounts of officer time away from preventing and solving crime, as well as dealing properly with victims, in order to fill gaps for others.”

The Met is by far Britain’s largest force, accounting for nearly a quarter of all officers in England and Wales. The letter cites data from a national police study that says officers spend almost a million hours a year waiting in hospitals for mental health patients to be assessed, the equivalent of attending 500,000 domestic abuse incidents or 600,000 burglaries. Rowley claims in his letter that Met police officers spend 10,000 hours a month dealing with mental health issues, and that it takes up to 14 hours to hand a patient over to medical staff. In what amounts to a broadside against the health service, he also says there are scores of cases a month in which his officers are called when patients waiting for treatment walk out and are reported missing.

sikacz wrote: Mon May 29, 2023 1:25 pm Probably should, especially considering the militaristic responses our law enforcement officers tend to have.

highdesert wrote: Mon May 29, 2023 11:48 pm

sikacz wrote: Mon May 29, 2023 1:25 pm Probably should, especially considering the militaristic responses our law enforcement officers tend to have.

The Met police figured out that upwards of 40% of a patrol constable's time is spent on mental health related calls. Often they have to go to the hospital with the individual and that can tie them up for hours. Yes, mental health and homeless issues should be delt with by specialist workers and not by our cops.

sikacz wrote: Tue May 30, 2023 9:28 am

highdesert wrote: Mon May 29, 2023 11:48 pm

sikacz wrote: Mon May 29, 2023 1:25 pm Probably should, especially considering the militaristic responses our law enforcement officers tend to have.

The Met police figured out that upwards of 40% of a patrol constable's time is spent on mental health related calls. Often they have to go to the hospital with the individual and that can tie them up for hours. Yes, mental health and homeless issues should be delt with by specialist workers and not by our cops.

Somehow it seems our society is failing to respond to any crisis it currently encounters. I don’t see an appropriate answer in the works or even being thought of. Agree with your comment, just don’t see it matter to anyone in power anymore. No threat or enticement works to have them do the right thing. If I say I won’t vote for you unless you stand up on this issue or another they simply say vote for the other guy knowing that the other for sure won’t support the issue. Not in a positive mood this morning, probably best to not even read more threads.

sig230 wrote: Tue May 30, 2023 11:39 am

sikacz wrote: Tue May 30, 2023 9:28 am

highdesert wrote: Mon May 29, 2023 11:48 pm

sikacz wrote: Mon May 29, 2023 1:25 pm Probably should, especially considering the militaristic responses our law enforcement officers tend to have.

The Met police figured out that upwards of 40% of a patrol constable's time is spent on mental health related calls. Often they have to go to the hospital with the individual and that can tie them up for hours. Yes, mental health and homeless issues should be delt with by specialist workers and not by our cops.

Somehow it seems our society is failing to respond to any crisis it currently encounters. I don’t see an appropriate answer in the works or even being thought of. Agree with your comment, just don’t see it matter to anyone in power anymore. No threat or enticement works to have them do the right thing. If I say I won’t vote for you unless you stand up on this issue or another they simply say vote for the other guy knowing that the other for sure won’t support the issue. Not in a positive mood this morning, probably best to not even read more threads.

Aye, there's the rub.

If today Congress passed laws and regulations and processes and procedures and models and mechanisms and methods to address all of the root causes of violence and suffering in the US ...

it would still take us a quarter century or more to educate the required personnel, build the infrastructure needed, educate the public on what is available and how to get help ...

and another quarter century or more to get the states to actually implement the resources ...

and yet another quarter century or so to get the public to accept what is available to them.

And to do that you need to convince the Senators and Representatives that they will see substantial results before the next election rolls around.

sikacz wrote: Tue May 30, 2023 12:02 pm All this tells me is our system is way too archaic to respond to issues in a rapidly evolving modern world. Not saying the rest of the world is doing better, mostly it’s not. Stagnation and war seems to be the inevitable.

TUCSON (KVOA) - The National Suicide Hotline officially changed it's number Saturday. Callers now dial 988 instead of the 10 digit number if they are in a mental health crisis.

Mental health experts hope 988 will transform mental health policy and erase the stigma associated with it.

And while new number is getting a lot of attention right now, Tucson's hotline and crisis response system has been considered the gold standard for mental health care for awhile.

"When we talk about wanting to build a crisis response system that's comparable to that which you have for medical emergencies, the Arizona model is being looked at for a national model for that," said Dr. Margie Balfour, Chief of Quality and Clinical Innovation at Connections Health Solutions.