Mental health nurses join forces with police in Lancashire
- 15 Jun
Mental health nurses will now work alongside police in Lancashire to help people involved in emergency incidents.
Nurses will now work with officers when called out to emergencies, due to a quarter of all emergencies now involving a mental health crisis, reports the Manchester Evening News.
From August nurses will also work with forces in the control room to help as 999 calls come in to advise people who are calling due to mental health issues.
It is hoped that mental health nurses will help people in crisis get the help they need immediately, rather than having them taken to a police station or hospital.
Lancashire Constabulary Assistant Chief Constable Mark Bates said: “We receive all sorts of calls where mental health is a factor, from those just calling for someone to speak to because they are lonely and depressed, to people threatening to commit suicide. This scheme is about taking action and supporting people at the earliest opportunity to prevent problems rather than responding to them. It means that individuals and families receive the most appropriate, quality support to ultimately build social resilience and create thriving communities. A quarter of the incidents that we deal with have some sort of related, and often complex, mental health issues attached and so the Mental Health Response Service will allow us to get upstream in helping those people to get the right response and support at first contact. Therefore individuals are less likely to enter the criminal justice system and less likely to need the services of police and other agencies, helping to reduce demand on all frontline services.”
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