The Metropolitan police has won its battle to stop attending most of the mental health calls it receives after a tense behind-the-scenes row with the health service, the Guardian has learned.
From 31 October it will start implementing a scheme that aims to stop officers being diverted from crime fighting, to do work health staff are better trained to do.
The Guardian in May revealed that the Met commissioner Sir Mark Rowley had written to health and social care leaders setting a deadline of 31 August – leading to furious reaction from health chiefs who wrote to the commissioner protesting that it could not be done.
The agreement sees Rowley push his deadline back by two months. In return, the health service will not publicly criticise the police decision, and will try to put measures in place to pick up the work.
A formal announcement is expected as soon as tomorrow and follows weeks of tense talks.
The Met was armed with legal advice from a senior barrister – a king’s counsel – arguing the law meant they did not have to do the work of the health service and would probably win any legal challenge.
Police will continue to attend calls if there is a risk to life, a danger to the public or a crime is believed to be taking place.
One health source with knowledge of the discussions told the Guardian the commissioner’s hard line was disliked, but had worked: “He got us round the table, got our attention and got us talking.
“It’s not malice but the NHS is notoriously slow. If he [Rowley] did not give a deadline we would have been here for 10 years.”
The scheme is called Right Care Right Person (RCRP), and has been agreed nationally by government departments and national police and health bodies.
Actually implementing it is down to local areas. NHS London has already started sending guidance to staff about what the new scheme might mean.
Among police forces the Met is thought to be an outlier, in effectively making a threat and giving an ultimatum, police and health sources say.
The Met cited figures showing that 78% of people detained by police under section 136 of the Mental Health Act were discharged home after an assessment, as opposed to being admitted, “suggesting mental health is being overpoliced”, the Met claimed.
Rowley’s letter in May summoned health and social care chiefs to meetings, which were held at the Met’s Scotland Yard central London headquarters and NHS offices in Waterloo.
One health source with close knowledge of the negotiations said: “There is nothing in their presentation you could disagree with.
“There has been a kneejerk reaction from health and social care, to call the police.”
RCRP was pioneered by Humberside police who believe it freed up 7% of officer time to do what the police are legally responsible for.
Health chiefs in London do not know how they will meet the new demand.
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A source said: “The health service is already overloaded, the winter crisis is coming, and London ambulance service already faces big performance pressure.”
One reason for the Met to delay, other than giving the health sector more time to prepare, is so that police call centres are better prepared to deal with the new system, a police source said.
When people call the police via 999 in an emergency or 101 for less urgent calls, they are routed to three Met call centres.
There were concerns the Met call centres were struggling with the time taken to pick up the phone exceeding national guidelines. On the 101 service more than three out of 10 callers were hanging up because they were so fed up with the wait.
The 101 service is crucial for RCRP to work as it is the number health and social care partners will often ring the police requesting help. The source said the call handling centres were improving and it is they who will make the call by call decision on when the new “threshold” for police being sent will apply.
The RCRP scheme has four stages. The first the Met is expected to implement is calls to check on welfare, for instance where a mental health patient has missed an appointment and where there is no intelligence of harm.
The second stage is where a patient leave a health facility, having been there voluntarily.
The third is handing over patients to the health sector, where officers can endure long waits of up to 14 hours.
The fourth stage is transporting people to a mental health facility.
For more than a decade police have been exasperated about picking up work they claimed was the responsibility of the health service. Austerity made the situation worse and the health sector, especially the mental health sector, have been struggling to fill vacancies.
Rowley in his May letter said that Met police officers spend 10,000 hours a month dealing with mental health issues, and that it takes up to 14 hours to hand a patient over to medical staff.
A litany of failings saw the Met placed in special measures and Rowley – who marks a year as commissioner next month – has vowed to clean up the force and boost its crime fighting.
