Right Care Right Person strategy - MPS reducing no. of mental health calls officers attend
Freedom of information request reference no: 01.FOI.23.033688
I note you seek access to the following information:
Number of mental health calls officers attend in London as part of the Right Care Right Person strategy.
I am reaching out to you as I would like to have a comment from the Met Police on the following:
- What is the current volume of mental health crisis calls received by the Met Police, which will be diverted to the right person with this strategy?
- How much officer time will be freed up with this initiative?
- What you expect the impact of this will be on the Met Police force?”
Decision
I have today decided to disclose the located information to you in full.
Please find below information pursuant to your request above.
- What is the current volume of mental health crisis calls received by the Met Police, which will be diverted to the right person with this strategy?
- How much officer time will be freed up with this initiative?
It has not been possible to create a statistically meaningful forecast on these issues owing to the fact this is new policy that has only been rolled out in a small number of police force areas. This information cannot therefore be provided to you as it is not held by the MPS.
However, we know that following the introduction of Right Care, Right Person, Humberside police saw a 27.5% reduction in deployments to calls marked as being section 136 Mental Health Act calls. In the MPS, we know that in the previous 12 months we received 77,775 section 136 calls. Of those, 39,649 were deployed to.
- What you expect the impact of this will be on the Met Police force?
The MPS Right Care Right Person Equality Impact Assessment (EIA) sets out the key benefits of the Right Care Right Person policy. I have provided the relevant section of the EIA below.
“Key Benefits:
We do not propose to set 'targets' for RCRP but want to see reductions in: call volumes; deployments; overall system demand.
For Victims of crime:
• By freeing up crucial officer time to attend policing incidents, victims of crime will be better supported when they need us most
For vulnerable MOPS:
• RCRP will help vulnerable patients to access the right care more quickly
• Prevent vulnerable people feeling criminalised by having a police response to a medical issue.
For officers and staff
• For officers, RCRP will reduce the number of purely health related incidents attended
• For MetCC, RCRP will free up lines and ease the pressure on our operators”
DUTY TO ADVISE AND ASSIST
Under Section 16 of the Act, there is a duty to advise and assist those that have made, or intend to make, a request for information. In accordance with this duty, I can confirm that the MPS publishes information about various types of crime on its website. I have provided a link to this information below.
MPS Website: Stats and Data
It may also assist you to note that the MPS proactively publishes all disclosures made in response to requests made under the Act on its Publication Scheme. I have provided a link to this section of the MPS website below.
MPS Publication Scheme
The MPS Publication Scheme can be searched using keywords and may accordingly hold other information that is of interest to you.