Police in London respond to a mental health call out every 4 minutes.

Metropolitan Police Officers across the capital are responding to mental health call outs every four minutes. Recent political debates have seen politicians tell us police officers have to ‘crack down on crime’- something I’m sure they are fully aware of, yet the question is how when they are responding to mental health call outs every four minutes of the day?

A recent news article highlighted how Met Police Officers are now transporting heart attack patients to hospital due to the increasing demands on London Ambulance Service. Pictures of police vehicles lining up outside numerous London hospitals is now common as is police officers doing guard duties at hospital.

So, once again we ask how are the police supposed to crack down on crime when so many are being deployed elsewhere?

Mental health services are under staffed, under funded and like the NHS struggling to cope. The Havering Daily recently asked NHS London for figures of the number of psychiatrists there are across London, despite many, many attempts to get this information-they failed to respond.

Speaking with psychiatrists here in east London we were told how there is a terrible shortage of mental health doctors and nurses and following the numerous lock downs, the increase in mental health problems has risen sharply.

The number of mental health patients and those seeking mental health assistance far out numbers the mental health staff including counsellors, which then has a knock on impact to our police officers who are always the first to respond no matter what the incident is.

Perhaps now would be the best time for politicians to actually address these vital issues in our community rather that stating headlines such as ‘police must crack down on crime’.

I’m sure every police officer strapping on their boots today is fully aware of their role, yet the key question is- are they going to be able to do their job or will they spend the day doing someone else’s role?

Police services, like health services have been underfunded for years and now these cuts have had serious consequences on our society.

The easiest, weakest and cheapest way is to currently blame everything on our police officers, especially the Met. Yet everyday thousands of their officers play a huge role in our community from administering life saving first aid to running after knife wielding suspects, yet there is no news of this and definitely no praise ever for them.

Thank you for what you do, and will do in our communities.