20.05.15
Home secretary announces plans to keep the mentally ill out of police cells
Theresa May is to announce £15m of funding to provide extra beds in hospitals and care homes to keep people detained under the Mental Health Act out of police cells.
She will also announce that a new policing and sentencing bill, to be included in the Queen’s Speech, will ban the use of police cells to hold those under 18 with mental health problems.
In her first speech since being reappointed as home secretary, May is expected to say: "Today I can announce that 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 ban on detaining those under 18 in police cells is likely to affect at least 150 children each year because of the lack of alternative NHS health facilities.
The new funding will be made available from the Department of Health to the NHS to work in partnership with police and crime commissioners to fund more health-based and alternative ‘places of safety’.
More than 4,000 people detained under the Mental Health Act were held in cells last year – a fifth of the total detained.
Other measures in the Police and Sentencing Bill include reducing the current 72-hour maximum period a person can be detained for medical assessment, and ensuring that police cells are only used as a place of safety for adults if the person’s behaviour is so extreme they cannot otherwise be safely managed.
(Image source: Oli Scarff/PA Wire)
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