Police and Mental Health

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Police and Mental Health
Norman Pascal Chief Inspector Local Policing Area
Commander Bath North East Somerset
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Police and Mental Health
The majority of people who end up in prison have
a mental health condition, a substance misuse
problem or a learning disability and one in four
has a severe mental health illness, such as
chronic depression or psychosis.   With this in
mind, how much time do you think police officers
spend dealing with people with mental health
issues?   The answer is between 15 to 25 of
their time. This is a major part of modern day
policing and I would welcome your thoughts on how
you feel we meet this challenge.   Through this
presentation I want to give you a better sense of
police training, powers and provisions and answer
any questions you may have.
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Training for Police Officers

• Initial training programme for new recruits
• Mental health is a thread running through many
  elements of policing  
• Our training provides an overview for officers
•  
• Increased mental health awareness
• Overview of diagnoses
• Real life scenarios from people with mental
  health issues
• Treatment support options
• Police powers in relation to mental illness
• Tools to support continual good practice
•  
• We are not experts and we rely heavily on our
  partners to guide us and provide the expert
  services they do.

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Police Powers
Section 135 Mental Health Act
Section 136 Mental Health Act
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Research Findings
Independent Police Complaints Commission
(IPCC)   Approximately half of all deaths in or
following police custody involve detainees with
some form of mental health problem   Long
accepted that police custody is not a suitable
place of safety. Police custody should only be
used as a last resort but it is used far too
frequently.   Her Majestys Inspectorate of
Constabulary (HMIC)   The use of police cells as
a place of safety was far from exceptional Those
detained under section 136 may be detained for up
to 72 hours, without any requirement for review
during this period Those arrested may generally
only be detained for 24 hours, with their
detention regularly reviewed to ensure that it is
still appropriate.
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New Arrangements

• A new agreement between police and the NHS seeks
  to improve mental health crisis care.
• The use of police cells as a place of safety to
  be halved
• The agreement called "crisis care concordat" was
  signed by 22 national organisations, including
  the Department of Health, the Home Office and the
  charity Mind.
• Aims to dramatically improve provision for those
  having a mental health crisis
• It challenges local services to make sure beds
  are always available for people who need them
  urgently and that police custody should never be
  used just because mental health services are not
  available.

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Local Changes

• In February a new four bed mental health place of
  safety facility opened its doors at Southmead
  Hospital
• This facility is for those detained in Bristol,
  North Somerset, BANES and South Gloucestershire
  and replaces the one bed provision previously at
  Callington Road
• This represents real progress in ensuring those
  who are most vulnerable receive the support they
  need
• A result of significant partnership working
  between all agencies
• There is still more work to do to further
  increase provision of places of safety across the
  force area and we will continue to do so.

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Appropriate Adults
At the last meeting, the subject of appropriate
adults was raised by Jude from Bath Mind. An
appropriate adult must be called whenever we
detain or interview a child (aged 10 to 17) or a
vulnerable adult Current provision has been
running for about 4 yrs, and has 9 volunteer
members This will increase to 60 volunteers that
can provide cover 24/7 by July 2014 In the
future the training package designed by the
national appropriate adult network will be used
to provide further independence and a nationally
consistently level of training for volunteers.
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Any Questions?