Cambridgeshire Police Federation chair Liz Groom has welcomed news that a scheme to ensure people are dealt with by the right agency is freeing up hours of time for officers.
‘Right Care, Right Person’ aims to ensure people needing support for mental health, medical, or social care issues are seen by someone with the appropriate skills, training, and experience.
Analysis of the scheme has shown it is saving, on average, 447 police officer hours every month, Cambridgeshire Police has said.
Liz said: “Policing has been overstretched for a number of years because of austerity, but we’ve also had to pick up the pieces following cuts to other services.
“For instance, the demand for officers to respond to people experiencing a mental health crisis continues to increase.
“It impacts our ability to prevent and detect crime, and adds even more to our members’ workloads.
“Police officers are not mental health or social care professionals and using them as a service of last resort potentially places them and members of the public in need of support at risk.
“We’ve been saying for a long time that things need to change and it looks like the Right Care, Right Person scheme is starting to do that, which we welcome.”
Phase two of Right Care, Right Person was launched in July, and sees a change in the Force’s approach to patients who have voluntarily attended a healthcare setting for a physical or mental health issue and have then walked out or where someone has been detained under a mental health section and is absent without leave.
If a call is made in relation to a patient that has left a medical setting, then the police will not routinely attend.
However, police will continue to attend when there is a risk to life, a risk of serious harm, or there is a duty to respond to crime or a policing specific vulnerability.
Officers may still attend if all reasonable steps have been completed to locate the patient in line with local policies and a decision will be made regarding recording the patient as a missing person.
Assistant Chief Constable Martin Brunning said: “It’s really positive to see that the RCRP scheme is already having the desired effects; our residents are receiving a better level of care from the most appropriate agency and police officers are being freed up to attend incidents where their skills and time are most needed.
“Protecting the vulnerable and keeping people safe is at the heart of everything we do and we want to ensure people receive the necessary support, while keeping police resources to tackle crime and deliver safer communities for the public.”