Sheffield MP: mentally ill people 'being locked up when they need support'
Sheffield Heeley MP Louise Haigh wants a review of how police handle mental health - as hundreds are being unlawfully locked up when they need NHS help
A Sheffield MP says it's 'unacceptable' so many mentally ill people are being locked up in police cells - when they should be getting the support they need.
It's illegal for police to hold people in custody without charge for more than 24 hours but experts think it's happening to 2000 mentally ill people every year because it might not be safe to let them go.
Sheffield Heeley MP Louise Haigh says that's because police have often got nowhere to send them for help:
"They are forced into an impossible decision between having to let someone go and be a risk to themselves or to the public - or break the law and be held responsible for that if they have to detain them in a police cell. That is just completely unacceptable.
"The NHS and mental health services and care can always say 'we don't have enough beds' or 'we're not going to take this person in'. The police don't have that ability to say no. There's nowhere else for that person to go after that but they are then stuck in the position of having to deal with them when they are not the approriate agency."
New research by the College of Policing's found more than 200 people who went on to have mental health assessments were kept in custody for more than 24 hours last year.
But experts think the true scale of the problem could be ten times that number.
Louise says a lack of mental health support is having a real impact on the police:
"I don't think it's surprising at all given we only have 2 mental health beds covering the whole of the Sheffield population. I know that mental health is one of the biggest demands on the police at the moment - 83% of calls to the police control room are not associated with crime and the vast majority of those are associated with mental health.
"It's putting strain on the police as a public service but it's also putting massive strain on the police officers themselves and the stress and intensity of having to deal with these people that the police aren't properly trained for is having a huge impact.
"It's a shocking reflection on the provision of mental health services in our country."
A Government spokesperson said:
"Since we reviewed the use of police custody for Mental Health Act detentions we have seen a 90% reduction in England in the number of people being held in custody who should be in NHS care, and Wales has had similar success.
"But we are determined to go further, which is why the Health Secretary asked Sir Simon Wessely to lead an Independent Review of the Act as a whole, and make recommendations for improvements — in both the law and in practice. Sir Simon will produce his interim report in spring 2018."