Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent discussions he has had with ministerial colleagues in the (a) Home Office and (b) Ministry of Justice on the way in which the police can deal sensitively with people undergoing mental health crises; and whether he has plans to review the need for mental health professionals to attend to such circumstances.

The Department for Health and Social Care and the Home Office have established a Crisis Care Senior Operational Group, with membership from both Departments, the National Police Chiefs Council, the Association for Police and Crime Commissioners, NHS England and NHS Improvement, Mind and others. This group recently discussed a national agreement between mental health services, social care and the police to ensure that people detained by the police under section 136 are safely and effectively transferred into health services.

Department of Health and Social Care and Home Office officials meet regularly and are members of the cross-Government governance group overseeing implementation of the Mental Health Act 1983 reforms, as set out in the White Paper published earlier this year. This work includes our commitment to remove police stations as a designated place of safety under the Act. The Ministry of Justice is not responsible for policing.

The NHS Long Term Plan and the Mental Health Act reforms proposed in the recent White Paper aim to improve the provision of community mental health and crisis care services to ensure that people in crisis receive the care and support they urgently need from health professionals.