Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, whether his Department has carried out an evaluation of the changes made under the first year of the Crisis Care Concordat.

The Department has commissioned Mind to provide an evaluation of the Crisis Care Concordat. This is expected in January 2016.

The principles of care set out in the Crisis Care Concordat have already helped to achieve a reduction in the use of police cells being used as places of safety for people in mental health crisis who have been detained by police officers under section 136 of the Mental Health Act. In the year following the Concordat’s publication in February 2014, the use of police cells as places of safety has reduced by over 33%, from 6,028 cases in 2013/14 to 3,996 in 2014/15¹ and the use of health-based places of safety has increased by 2,400 in the same period².

Since the publication of the Crisis Care Concordat, every local area in England has formed a local Concordat group and this spring, each one produced a detailed action plan showing how local services will improve for people in mental health crisis.

Source:

¹National Police Chief’s Council

http://news.npcc.police.uk/releases/fall-in-use-of-police-custody-for-those-in-mental-health-crisis

² Health & Social Care Information Centre Inpatients formally detained in hospitals under the Mental Health Act 1983, and patients subject to supervised community treatment Uses of the Mental Health Act, 2014/15

http://www.hscic.gov.uk/catalogue/PUB18803/inp-det-m-h-a-1983-sup-com-eng-14-15-rep.pdf