One of the many horrible injustices faced by people in the throes of a mental health crisis is that, rather than get the medical help they need, they’re locked up in a police cell.
Norman Lamb and Nick Clegg have been doing something to ensure that these people have better care. A new Crisis Care Concordat between Police, paramedics and health services should deliver important changes:
- Health-based places of safety and beds are available 24/7 in case someone experiences a mental health crisis
- Police custody should not be used because mental health services are not available and police vehicles should also not be used to transfer patients. We want to see the number of occasions police cells are used as a place of safety for people in mental health crisis halved compared 2011/12
- Timescales are put in place so police responding to mental health crisis know how long they have to wait for a response from health and social care workers. This will make sure patients get suitable care as soon as possible
- People in crisis should expect that services will share essential ‘need to know’ information about them so they can receive the best care possible. This may include any history of physical violence, self-harm or drink or drug history
- Figures suggest some black and minority ethnic groups are detained more frequently under the Mental Health Act. Where this is the case, it must be addressed by local services working with local communities so that the standards set out in the Concordat are met
- A 24-hour helpline should be available for people with mental health problems and the crisis resolution team should be accessible 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Nick Clegg said that locking mentally ill people up in cells was unacceptable:
A mental health crisis can already be distressing for individuals and all those involved, but when people aren’t getting the right support or care it can have very serious consequences. It’s unacceptable that there are incidents where young people and even children can end up in a police cell because the right mental health service isn’t available to them.
That’s why we’re taking action across the country and across organisations to make sure those with mental health problems are receiving the emergency care they need.
We want to build a fairer society – one where mental health is as important as physical health – and the Crisis Care Concordat is an important step towards addressing this disparity.
Health Minister Norman Lamb added:
When someone has a mental health crisis, it is distressing and frightening for them as well as the people around them. Urgent and compassionate care in a safe place is essential – a police cell should never need to be used because mental health services are not available. For me, crisis care is the most stark example of the lack of equality between mental and physical health.
The NHS and police already work well together in some areas, but it is totally unacceptable that crisis mental health care is so variable across the country. It is imperative that all areas seek to implement the principles of the Concordat as quickly as possible to ensure consistent care, no matter where you live.
Better care for people in mental health crises will not only help those living through their darkest hours to recover – it can also save lives.
You can read more details here.
This might not have grabbed headlines, but it’s another example of steady progress led by Clegg and Lamb to improve mental health services. They both know that there is much more to be done. It’s one reason why we really need Liberal Democrats in government after 2015 because there is more than one term’s work in this.
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12 Comments
According to Wikipedia, “A concordat is an agreement or treaty between the Holy See of the Catholic Church and a sovereign state that deals with the recognition and privileges of the Catholic Church in a particular country and with secular matters that impact on church interests, such as taxation as well as the right of a state to influence the selection of bishops within its territory.”
From the description, this doesn’t seem to be a concordat, so why call it one?
Ah, so you can’t find anything wrong in the substance, so you’re nitpicking about the name. We had a concordat in Scotland when councils agreed council tax freeze with the government way back in 2007. What would you have called it?
“Ah, so you can’t find anything wrong in the substance, so you’re nitpicking about the name.”
It’s a shame you can’t be polite yourself, Caron, when you carry on so interminably about the need for other people to be polite.
But since you asked, I would just call it an agreement. Why call it something pretentious and inaccurate instead?
Chris, Caron is being perfectly polite, she is just accusing you of nitpicking, which seems a perfectly valid accusation for a comment which says nothing useful.
Another policy win, particuarly for Norman Lamb, who is proving to be an excellent health minister, but also for Nick Clegg who has consistently given a high profile to mental health issues.
Come off it Chris, curmudgeonly nitpicking is so much your thing and Caron is hardly being impolite. Actually the dictionary (OUP) starts off: Concordat: an agreement or treaty, then it qualifies the definition as especially involving the Vatican. It easily fits the agreement definition. If that is not enough you can trace its Latin origin: concordatum = ‘something agreed upon’.
“Chris, Caron is being perfectly polite, she is just accusing you of nitpicking, which seems a perfectly valid accusation for a comment which says nothing useful.”
Do you not think, in view of all the earnest discussions here about how to combat public disillusionment with politics, it might be ‘useful’ if politicians could avoid using silly, pretentious and inaccurate jargon like this: what Sir Ernest Gowers called ‘verbo-pomposity’, which – he said – puzzled the simple reader and annoyed the sophisticated one?
Of course I realise anyone who objects to this kind of misuse of English is laying himself open to being labelled a crank.
But I still wonder whether anyone can answer the question I asked. Why use the word ‘concordat’, which many people will not understand and others will be irritated by, when a perfectly clear and correct English word is available.
Chris
“Of course I realise anyone who objects to this kind of misuse of English is laying himself open to being labelled a crank.”
Well if the cap fits……or in your case the Homburg. I also don’t like to see misuse of English, but I don’t like to see it being pursued to the point of ruining an important thread such as this. I have not agreed with Nick Clegg many times on LDV over the years (you have only to look at my various postings), but I have to give him credit on this issue. If this has been going on quietly behind the headlines, then it deserves praise and more publicity.
Incidentally Chris, the OED gives a second definition for concordat; that being an agreement “sometimes between secular persons”. Therefore I would suggest that it sounds right in the above context (and I do like the alliterative sound of “Crisis Care Concordat”).
>Health-based places of safety and beds are available 24/7 in case someone experiences a mental health crisis
There was a very good case put forward by an author a few days back on radio 4 (apologies for being ‘woolly’), who had voluntarily spent time in the last “asylum” in the UK. Her point was that the hospital and grounds provided an environment in which she was able to feel safe and not being judged by others and hence develop a trusting relationship with her psychiatrist and so (over a few years) was able to return to the world. She strongly felt that by effectively closing all the mental hospitals, we had lost a valuable environment for the treatment of mental health problems. This viewpoint obviously is slightly at odd’s with our common received view about the function of mental hospitals.
For all our policy wins after 4 years in Government we need action on the ground. YoungMinds CEO has a good piece on today’s news that more children are ending up getting ‘inappropriate’ care on adult wards http://www.communitycare.co.uk/2014/02/20/cuts-early-intervention-underpin-childrens-mental-health-care-failings/#.UwWrgX8gGSM
Apart from locking them up the Police might do well to also avoid:
Pushing illegitimate cautions towards them when they are too unwell to realise they should ask for a solicitor.
Putting their mental illness on the enhanced part of their criminal record.
Both of these actually damage the long term ability of a person who has suffered mental illness re-entering the job market and getting back to normal far more than a night in the police cells.
Once again the Lib Dems ignore the real problem and play around the edges like the courageous lions they are.
All the while the people suffer at their hands.