Mental Health Street Triage Pilot for Berkshire East – to receive the above report from Gavin Wong, Chief Inspector, Thames Valley Police.

Chief Inspector Gavin Wong of Thames Valley Police addressed the Health and Wellbeing Board requesting the support of the Board in introducing a pilot for Street Mental Health Triage which has the potential to begin in April 2016. He added that one in four people suffer with mental health issues and the JSNA covered the area. The Chief Inspector explained the police were proposing setting up a Street Mental Health Triage Service in the East Berkshire area and that the proposal was made using an evidence base generated as a consequence of a current Street Triage pilot in Oxfordshire.

The Chief Inspector gave some back ground information to show why he felt the Street Triage Service was necessary which included 30% of incidents attended by the police were not crime related and the police were not specialists trained in Mental Health; he wanted to play a proactive role in safeguarding and make sure it related to current legislation.

Following assessment, someone assessed by the Mental Health Street Triage Service could be admitted to hospital, they could refer themselves to hospital or, they could be released or discharged. The Chief Inspector was looking to improve the service for people with mental health issues.

The service would work by having a mental health professional accompanying a police officer when attending incidents. The mental health professional would be there to advise if it was not an S136 job. The pilot was running across Thames Valley Police but, evidence shows that across the UK, numbers of S136 were significantly reduced when the Street Triage Services was implemented.

The Chief Inspector confirmed there were cost implications and that the benefits outweighed the costs as there were less assessments and GP time required. There was also the benefit to the police as officers would spend less time dealing with S136; with the impact to community health teams reduced also. The Chief Inspector added that the pilot would only run during peak times.

Dr Hayter stated that a proposal for better joined up care was welcomed by the Health and Wellbeing Board. However, the reality was there were a number of mental health workers and teams already in place, such as crisis response teams and information sharing also taking place. He questioned if there was a better way of allocating resources other than pairing mental health workers with police officers. The best situation would be to come together at the right time; but keeping people together all the time just in case something happened was not the best use of resources. The Chief Inspector explained he did not mind how the teams came together; the scheme was not set in stone. However, there needed to be some sort of triage model in place. Dr Hayter responded that as a GP, most calls came in for mental health out of peak hours, they needed to look at the best use of resources and a different way of doing things.

The Chief Inspector confirmed information sharing was already in place and that the Mental Health Triage Services was a pilot to see if the scheme was effective. Based on evidence from other pilots, it showed it worked well but, he was also happy to look at other ways of implementing resources.

Christabel Shawcross, Strategic Director of Adult & Community Services stated evidence of S136 was rising in Berkshire so she understood the issue from a police perspective. However the evidence did not demonstrate savings for adult social care on reducing the working time for Approved Mental Health Practitioners (AMHP). There were calls for more AHMPs to be provided nationally. Whilst this may be a community safety issue, it was not necessarily an adult social care budget issue, with competing priorities. There was also the need to explore wider issues of prevention services that are related to this type of mental health project, such as alcohol or drug abuse. Christabel Shawcross said there had been discussions amongst colleagues Directors who would liaise after the other HWB presentations and she chaired a Mental Health East Berkshire coordinating meeting and would discuss in a few weeks. The Chief Inspector replied the Triage Service was not a solution to everything. He added the costs of the service could be spread across agencies and partners.

RESOLVED: That the Strategic Director of Adult & Community Services in conjunction with Dr Adrian Hayter to liaise with Chief Inspector Gavin Wong about the best way to coordinate resources for a Street Mental Health Triage Service to be piloted in East Berkshire.