Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the implications for her policies of the adoption by police forces of the Right Care, Right Person operational model.

Police forces are operationally independent of Government, and Chief Constables have the autonomy to decide whether their force will adopt the Right Care Right Person approach which originated in Humberside Police. This is an approach supported in the findings of the Policing Productivity Review that is being carried out, hosted by the National Police Chiefs Council, and one that Chiefs Council have agreed to promote as a national model.

The model has been successfully deployed in Humberside and that people experiencing a mental health episode, where there is no immediate risk of serious harm or criminality, or the need for the use of police powers, will normally require a health response, ensuring those with the right skills and expertise can provide the best possible service for people in crisis.

Government and health partners are currently finalising a new National Partnership Agreement between the police and health sectors, which will help to ensure that any emergency calls for service are responded to by the most appropriate agency to attend that incident; that those with the right skills and expertise can provide the best possible service for people in crisis.

The approach will not mean that police completely withdraw from assisting where the threshold for their attendance has been met, where there is a real and immediate risk to life or serious harm or responding to a report of crime. As part of the National Decision Model, police are required to continually assess risk of harm and threat.