Theresa May pledges £15m to keep mentally ill people out of police cells
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Version 0 of 1. The home secretary, Theresa May, is to pledge up to £15m of new funding to provide health-based alternatives for the 4,000 people a year who spend time in detention in police cells under the Mental Health Act. In her first speech since being reappointed home secretary, May will tell the Police Federation conference on Wednesday that a new policing and sentencing bill, to be included in next week’s Queen’s speech, will include legislation to ban the use of police cells to detain any children with mental health problems. It is thought that the ban on detaining those under 18 in police cells as “places of safety” is likely to affect at least 150 children each year because of the lack of alternative NHS health facilities. The policing and sentencing bill is also expected to include a manifesto promise to introduce a new sentence based around a “sharp, short spell in custody” that will involve locking up prolific offenders in police cells “to change their behaviour”. The home secretary is to tell the Police Federation that the extra £15m in funding will save police time and ensure that vulnerable people receive the medical care and support they need. The Conservative manifesto includes a pledge to ensure proper provision of places of safety for people suffering mental health crises. The new funding is to be made available to the NHS, working in partnership with police and crime commissioners, to fund more health-based and alternative places of safety. People detained under the Mental Health Act 1983 can be held in a hospital or police station for up to 72 hours. May is to tell the Police Federation conference in Bournemouth: “Nobody wins when the police are sent to look after people suffering from mental health problems; vulnerable people don’t get the care they need and deserve, and the police can’t get on with the job they are trained to do. “Last year, over 4,000 people detained under section 135 and 136 of the Mental Health Act were held in a police cell rather than in a health-based place of safety. “The government will provide the bed and the funding that is needed to stop that happening. This will mean up to £15m of new funding to deliver health-based places of safety in England and a guarantee from this government that no person with mental health problems will be detained by the police due to the lack of a suitable alternative. “The right place for a person suffering a mental health crisis is a bed, not a police cell. And the right people to look after them are medically trained professionals, not police officers.” The latest figures show that at least 21,995 people were sectioned under section 136 of the Mental Health Act 1983, of whom at least 20% were detained in police cells. The police are estimated to spend between 20% and 40% of their time dealing with people with mental health issues. The new legislation in next week’s Queen’s speech will also ensure that police cells are only used as a place of safety for adults if the person’s behaviour is so extreme that they cannot otherwise be safely managed. The current 72-hour maximum period of detention for the purposes of a medical assessment will be reduced and the new bill will enable other places, apart from police cells and health-based alternatives, to be designated as places of safety to support vulnerable people. |