The number of people suffering from mental illness who are being locked up in police cells, rather than getting access to suitable places of safety, is continuing to fall as a more joined-up approach to services takes hold in Staffordshire.
In the first ten months of 2014, 61 people with mental health issues were detained in police custody in Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent compared to 137 for the same period in 2013 – a reduction of almost 60 per cent. In October alone, three people were detained in police custody compared to 12 in October 2013.
The progress comes after Matthew Ellis, Staffordshire’s Police and Crime Commissioner, put pressure on mental health service providers to agree a protocol for when NHS ‘places of safety’ are unavailable to ensure alternatives other than custody are in place.
A community triage scheme, initially funded by the Commissioner, where mental health professionals are on hand to give advice to police officers dealing with people in crisis is also having effect and was visited by Policing and Criminal Justice Minister Mike Penning when he came to Stoke-on-Trent last week.
Mr Ellis said: “Police custody is fundamentally the wrong place for an individual who is in mental health crisis to be kept if they have not committed a crime.
“The ambition for joint working is really starting to take hold after North Staffordshire NHS Healthcare Trust signed up to the protocol a month ago, following their counterparts in the south.
“It’s fantastic news that more and more people who call for assistance and need specialist mental health care rather than a police officer are now getting the right help thanks to the triage scheme.
“It shows that there is clear joined up ambition to do better and work towards common goals and that, by doing so, we can make real progress. The challenge now is to keep things going in the right direction to make sure that even fewer people are locked up in police custody for simply being ill.”
As part of the changes instigated by the PCC, all police detentions related to the Mental Health Act in Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent automatically now trigger a review to confirm whether the use of a police cell is appropriate.
