Why Police Officers Are Now Mental Health Workers As Health Facilities Struggle.

Police stations across London are receiving thousands of calls a month from those desperately struggling with their mental health and have no one else to turn to. This is a London wide crisis that is not not being acknowledged and needs to be urgently addressed. Last year, the Havering Daily requested the number of psychiatrists there are across London and was not given the information from NHS London,despite numerous requests.

If have you visited your GP recently and asked to see a counsellor, you now face a long wait. Equally, those in desperate need find themselves struggling to access support and in utter desperation, turn to the police for help.

The aftermath of numerous lockdowns and the cost of living crisis is hitting our communities hard as people struggle to put food on the table for their families. Energy bill price increases has hit many hard and stories of elderly people sitting in their homes with coats on, is not uncommon.

During the Christmas period, one public sector worker, visited an elderly lady’s home to find her cupboards for the holiday period contained tea bags and a loaf of bread. Heartbroken by what he had seen, he took it upon himself to help her. But just how many of these elderly people are there in our community and how many go unnoticed?

How many parents go to bed hungry to feed their children? How many then end up calling the police as they cannot take it anymore?

Figures by the Met Police revealed that in one hour, 36 police officers were responding to people suffering a mental health crisis. 68 calls were received and fourteen officers were deployed. Let’s add the number of officers who have already been called to mental health units or those at Emergency Departments.

The police, as always is heavily criticised for not being mental health workers, which they know they are not, but if they do not attend who will? No one is the answer.

Everyday police officers across London respond to endless mental health call outs, as a matter of fact it is believed that one in four calls is a mental health related call.

Yet it is our police officers that are the ones most frequently attacked, on a daily basis actually. Even the British Medical Journal, who fails to acknowledge the amount of time officers spend supporting the NHS, published a very attacking article on police officers. Yet without them, who would help the community?

Urgent funding needs to be placed to help those struggling with their mental health. The waiting list for counsellors is long and many cannot afford to visit private counsellors. Community support needs to be given for those who struggle, we cannot keep relying on police officers to fill this void, it is not their job.

Police officers are needed to fulfill their own roles, they get repeatedly knocked for not coming out to calls, when the the reality is they are sent across the community responding to mental health call outs.

With the cost of living crisis starting to hit hard, the level of mental health call outs will increase. Now is the time that we must start to fund a community wide mental health approach to support those in need in our boroughs. Charities across the capital are doing an amazing job helping those in need, running daily groups and doing the best that they can to support others, but we must urgently invest now in our mental health system and bring back the community wide approach and holistic approach.

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