A whistleblower repeatedly warned senior officers and the Home Office that a scheme to refuse police deployment to the majority of mental health calls was a serious risk to the public.

Michael Brown, a former inspector and expert in how officers deal with mental health, said he was rebuffed when he raised serious concerns about the Right Care, Right Person (RCRP) scheme.

The Times revealed how RCRP, designed to free up officer time by requiring health services to attend to people experiencing a mental health crisis, has been linked to suicides and accidental deaths. At least six coroners have issued prevention of future death rulings flagging concerns about the policy or detailing how officers were not deployed to vulnerable people in serious crises.

Chief constables have lauded the RCRP scheme for saving up to one million police hours a year that they say will be spent investigating crime.

Brown, the former national mental health co-ordinator at the College of Policing, the standards body, said he was supportive of the notion that police had been overrelied upon in addressing situations involving vulnerable people who would be better served with care from mental health or medical professionals.

The basis of RCRP, that those in crisis received a health-based response, was correct, Brown said.

However, for the past two years he has repeatedly said it has resulted in “police wiping their hands of things that are obviously still their business”. He said police had a duty to...

Read Full Story: https://news.google.com/rss/articles/CBMinwFBVV95cUxOOEllV0VDWDVTeHFoZURBU1ND...