Mental health services are in crisis and we police struggle to pick up the slack

I feel sorry for the person I arrested recently who had caused criminal damage because they didn’t have the mental health help they needed

I am a police officer in an English police force and I’d like to apologise for the lack of support we can offer to people facing mental health problems. Cuts to NHS mental health services in recent years have put mounting pressure on the police force to pick up the slack and we aren’t trained or prepared to deal with it.

Recently I went to the home of a person who had been putting large lacerations across their arm, bad enough to need a couple of stitches, but not bad enough to bleed out. A friend had made the call to 999.

Continue reading... October 28, 2017 at 02:53PM