Yahoo News Tuesday briefing: The Met police is taking a step back from mental health crisis care – but who steps in?
Good morning. It’s an intuitive proposition: the police’s primary duty is to protect the public and stop crime, and it must discard any responsibilities that interfere with that goal. But an exclusive story by Vikram Dodd that led the Guardian yesterday suggests how much more complicated the picture is in reality.
Vikram revealed that Metropolitan police commissioner Sir Mark Rowley will soon order officers not to attend the thousands of mental health incidents they get called to in London each year, unless there is an immediate threat to life. Rowley says that the force simply does not have the resources or the training to deal with the scale of the task. Now health leaders are warning that thousands of people will simply be left without support if the Met walks away.
Nobody thinks that the police are the ideal people to deal with most of these cases – but the question is whether anyone else will be able to pick up the pieces that the Met is putting down. Today’s newsletter will run you through an extremely difficult issue that prompts urgent questions about what the police are for, and who is there to help people in mental health crises. Here are the headlines.
Five big stories
Housing | Labour is planning to give local officials in England sweeping new powers to buy land cheaply and develop on it, as part of the party’s new “pro-building” agenda. Party sources say that if elected next year, they will pass a law to allow local development authorities the ability to buy up land at a fraction of its potential cost under compulsory purchase orders.
Cost of living | Food inflation in the UK fell in May, lifting hopes that the rapid increase in grocery prices may have reached its peak after keeping the broader consumer prices index painfully high so far this year. After more than a year of sharp increases, the rate of annual food inflation eased from 15.7% to 15.4%.
Ukraine | At least one person has died in Kyiv and three were injured during the third Russian attack in 24 hours. Meanwhile, the mayor of Moscow said that several buildings there had been hit by drones, but had caused only minor damage and no serious injuries.
Uganda | Uganda’s president, Yoweri Museveni, has signed the world’s harshest anti-LGBTQ+ bill into law. The legislation, which allows the death penalty for homosexual acts, drew widespread condemnation, with Joe Biden saying the US was considering sanctions against Ugandan officials.
Covid inquiry | The Cabinet Office could take unprecedented action to prevent Boris Johnson’s unredacted diaries and WhatsApp messages being handed to the official Covid inquiry, the Guardian had been told. Officials, who are due to respond to a request for the materials by 4pm today, could launch a legal challenge to resist the inquiry’s demands for the full cache of messages.
In depth: ‘My police officers want to make a difference … But this isn’t what they’re trained to do’
In London, Sir Mark Rowley says, officers spend about 10,000 hours a month dealing with mental health issues; the Met gets a call about a mental health concern every four minutes. An internal police report (pdf) on the cost and demand of mental health produced in 2018 said that 40% of the Met’s work had a mental health element. Across England and Wales, requests to intervene in mental health incidents tripled between 2019 and 2021.
A large proportion of these incidents are not situations that a layperson might expect to constitute police work: officers spend about a million hours a year in hospitals waiting for mental health patients to be assessed. 44% of people detained under the Mental Health Act in 2020/21 were taken to a place of safety by a police vehicle, not an ambulance. And more generally, Rowley (pictured above) says that only 30% of 999 calls in London are related to crime.
These figures are stark evidence for the rationale behind Rowley’s view that his officers are being stretched beyond their capacity by their work with people who have mental health problems. But they are also a gauge of just how much the rest of the system will have to pick up if the Met abandons its role.
In an interview with Newsnight in March that hinted at the change, Rowley said: “My police officers … they’re caring people, they want to make a difference, they will do their best. But this isn’t what they’re trained to do.”
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What is the Met proposing?
People with mental health problems are much more likely to be the victims of violence than its perpetrators, while people with some kinds of mental disorder are more likely to be violent than the rest of the population. Research for London’s violence reduction unit published in November found that poor mental health was a factor for the victim or the perpetrator in 29 of 50 murders it examined in the capital. In theory, the Met will continue to attend any incidents where there is a threat to life.
But in all other cases, it will give up its current role. The impact of that decision will be wide-ranging.
At the moment, police officers may be asked to conduct welfare checks for patients who have missed a mental health appointment, or look for those who go missing from a mental health facility; transport someone in distress to hospital if an ambulance isn’t available and wait with them in A&E until they are seen; and attend 999 calls if a mental health incident is called in, even if there is no threat to life.
All of that will come to an end in September. By then, health and social care agencies are supposed to have a plan in place to take over all of these responsibilities.
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Is there a precedent?
The origins of Rowley’s plan lie in the “Right Care, Right Person” scheme put in place three years ago by Humberside police service in response to a 35% year-on-year rise in calls related to mental health, many from other agencies which lacked the capacity to deal with them on their own. Between January 2019 and October 2022, it reduced the proportion of relevant incidents to which it sent officers from 78% to 31%. And it was able to redeploy the resources that were freed up to do other kinds of police work.
Home secretary Suella Braverman wrote to chief constables in February encouraging them to take the same approach, and some are already doing so. But the Humberside model was implemented over almost two years; Rowley is giving other agencies about three months to adapt.
In his Newsnight interview, Rowley said of a two-year timeline: “I can’t afford to wait for that.” One of the most interesting pieces of reaction yesterday was from outgoing Humberside police chief Lee Freeman in an interview with PM on BBC Radio 4. He seemed to suggest that Rowley’s deadline could be a ploy: “I had to make some very similar statements early doors … I can’t believe any police force in the country isn’t open to those discussions.”
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What are the benefits?
Most obvious is the reduction in pressure on scarce police resources – with the Met about £878m short of where it was in 2010/11 when population growth is taken into account. The time spent waiting for patients to be assessed in hospital alone is estimated to be the equivalent of attending half a million domestic abuse incidents.
Just 2% of the public think it is the police’s responsibility to attend mental health-related calls, and so Rowley may see little further risk to the Met’s battered reputation.
There is also an argument that – if the resources are there for alternative services – it makes much more sense for properly trained professionals to be the first port of call for people with mental health issues. Ironically, this is one of the arguments made for defunding the police: the involvement of officers without the expertise or the motivation to deal with such cases is likely to do further harm, and the mere presence of the police creates entirely the wrong framework for helping some of the most vulnerable people in society.
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What are the risks?
That theory rests on adequate resources being in place across the rest of the system. And while the Department of Health and Social Care recently promised £150m to improve mental health crisis care, that is a drop in the ocean compared with the increase in demand since the coronavirus crisis.
There was a 44% increase in referrals to NHS mental health services between 2016/17 and 2021/22, and 1.8 million people are on waiting lists for mental health support, with nearly a quarter waiting for more than three months to start treatment – the exact circumstances that lead people to call 999 in desperation in the first place.
Despite this, the British Medical Association says that promises of additional funding made in 2019 are not on track to be met (pdf), and that the mental health workforce is in a state of steady decline. In Humberside, Lee Freeman suggested that it was the announcement of the police’s decision that led to new money being found to fund the gap in provision.
There will inevitably be complications for the police in implementing the new policy, too: the question of when there is a “threat to life” is a subjective one, and Rowley will fear the emergence of cases where the police declined to attend only for somebody to later die or be seriously hurt.
All in all, the decision appears understandable within the narrow parameters of Rowley’s remit to maximise the Met’s ability to solve crimes – but may also have serious and predictable consequences.
“I am not persuaded we have got enough in the system to tolerate a shift to this new approach,” Sarah Hughes, the chief executive of Mind, said yesterday. “I think we’ve got a huge way to go before the system is working together on behalf of very distressed individuals.”
What else we’ve been reading
Avert your eyes if you’re yet to watch the Succession finale: here’s Lucy Mangan on the embarrassment of televisual riches that Jesse Armstrong and co saved for the Roys’ last hurrah (pictured above). Hannah J Davies, deputy editor, newsletters
Almost everyone thinks they’re bad at maths. Eugenia Cheng (who is professionally good at it) explains how to make it less terrifying for children, and avoid turning out future generations of “mathophobes”. Archie
Comfortingly creamy and easily punched-up with whatever flavours you desire, the humble butter bean is a store-cupboard staple for a reason. Here are two simple budget recipes from Jess Elliot Dennison – including one that might even have you ditching mashed potatoes for good. Hannah
Maclean’s has a riveting memoir piece by Noah Vineberg, a bus driver from Ottawa, Canada, who bet more than $1m from the age of 10 years old until he gave it up in 2018 – and now finds that the ever-growing number of gambling ads is making abstinence very hard to maintain. Archie
Viv Groskop has written a lovely piece for the Guardian’s new series, The pet I’ll never forget, about the daring Julian: “less cat and more Artful Dodger with mafia stirrings”. Hannah
Sport
Football | After the drama of the Premier League’s final day, the Guardian’s sports desk pored over the best games, best goals, best signings, biggest gripes and more. And don’t miss their club-by-club review of the Women’s Super League either.
Football | A 123rd-minute diving header from Josh Windass gave Sheffield Wednesday a 1-0 win against Barnsley in the League One playoff final. The match had been poised to go to penalties despite Barnsley having played with 10 men for more than 70 minutes.
Tennis | Novak Djokovic’s quest for a record-breaking 23rd men’s grand slam began with an easy straight sets first-round win over debutant Aleksandar Kovacevic on Monday. In the women’s draw, American Sloane Stephens also won in straight sets, and spoke after the match about the racism she has endured as a player. “It’s obviously been a problem my entire career,” the world number 30 said. “It has never stopped. If anything, it’s only gotten worse.”
The front pages
“Labour to let councils buy land cheaply to tackle housing crisis” is the Guardian’s page one lead this Tuesday morning. The Financial Times is on the same page: “Labour plans land valuation reform to ease housing crisis”. “I lost my little boy … this must stop”, says the Daily Mirror, which revisits the terrible story of Jack Lis’s death under the banner “Danger dogs epidemic” – a law against them is being sought. “Households urged to recycle less to cut waste” – the government wants us to stop “wishcycling” (great word), says the i, because non-recyclables are buggering up the rubbish processing chain.
“The gloves are off” – it’s Eamonn Holmes versus Phil Schofield in the Metro. “Stop banks ‘ripping off’ loyal savers” says the Daily Express – the story draws on a Which? survey. The Times splashes with “Legal wrangle looms over Johnson’s WhatsApp chats”. Top story in the Daily Telegraph is “PM backs feminist in Oxford row over free speech”. The Daily Mail has “Fury at Starmer’s £1.5m from Just Stop Oil donor”.
Today in Focus
Bashar al-Assad’s dark return to the world stage
For almost a decade the murderous actions of the Syrian president meant he was shunned but now he is being embraced by Arab leaders once more. What does this mean for the millions of refugees who fled from his brutal regime?
Cartoon of the day | Tom Johnston
The Upside
A bit of good news to remind you that the world’s not all bad
Ann Halloran set off alone on her first backpacking trip at 65, weighed down by a 15kg rucksack, following years as a workaholic and more than her share of bereavement. The trip began in the Himalayas and ended at a yoga retreat in Mexico, and it was not without challenges. But it also left her with a new strength of inner strength and hard-won perspective.
In her 40s, Halloran’s four-year-old son had died in a car accident; six years later her husband had died. After the loss of her son, she told writer Paula Cocozza for the series A new start after 60, she “became a workaholic. The week he died, I went back to work. I started at 5am, and worked until eight in the evening. I’d put the kids to bed, then go into the office at 10pm and work till 2am. It was my stability.”
Halloran realised on the yoga retreat that she had to let that go, and meditation, in particular, taught her to slow down. She doesn’t regret the work ethic that helped her raise her children and get by for so long, but says: “From now on, in the few years I’ve got left, I want to shift … I feel as if I’ve washed up on the shore and it’s a new venture.”
Sign up here for a weekly roundup of The Upside, sent to you every Sunday
Bored at work?
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