Met Police Stop Attending Mental Health 999 calls

Strumms

https://news.sky.com/story/metropolitan-police-to-stop-attending-999-calls-linked-to-mental-health-incidents-12892351

Wonder if the Gardai would have the foresight to do the same.. focus on crime prevention / detection ... especially how low numbers of Gardai are in proportion to the exploding population, higher crime rates... and reported waiting times for Gardai now too...

A person in a so-called personal 'health crisis' should be attended by a local healthcare professional... not Gardai..

HeidiHeidi

Not a hope.

Rank and file gardai have been saying the same for literally years.

Mental health demands are assigned to charities here, so our government will just expect these to step up to the mark of that happens.

Mrs OBumble

I wonder how that would sit with the legislative framework here.

Also how they distinguish crime based on mental health issues from other crime: arguably all alcohol induced incidents are due to mental health issues.

BattleCorp

If someone is being violent or threatening violence, then the Gardai need to attend.

What local healthcare professionals are there in Ireland that could attend to someone with a knife threatening themselves or others while they are having a mental health crisis?

It's all well and good saying the Gardai shouldn't attend but there really is no other service on call 24 hours a day to step in if someone is having a mental health crisis.

Glaceon

I had to do this for a friend several years ago. She later told me that I saved her life. In the moment I'm not sure who else I could have called.

Hotblack Desiato

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058298335/met-police-stop-attending-mental-health-999-calls

Not surprisingly, the years of Tory cuts to policing (and mental health services) in the UK isn't mentioned in the article once.

Potential-Monke

I'd be all for it. It's madness to expect every member of AGS to be able to give someone with mental health difficulties the support they need. During my time, I hated these calls, because unless there was a threat of violence, it really had nothing to do with me. I didn't have the training, nor the interest, in being the person they needed. I had plenty of other actual AGS related work to do, but I have spent countless hours pretending I knew what I was doing. You ask for help, but everyone else is in the same boat, no one has the qualifications needed. No wonder things go wrong.

But it would require a 24 hour medical service that would be always available, everywhere, to attend these. And they probably won't attend with Garda support anyway, so would be moot.

But I'd be all for getting AGS back to what their main job is, and stop expecting them to be everything else also. It can't work. It doesn't work. I might have stayed if my job was specifically crime detection and prevention. Probably not, there are still plenty other problems in there. But this is just another unrealistic expectation of our national police force.

mikethecop

Alarm at Garda use of mental health powers (irishexaminer.com)

the usual fcuked if you do fcuked if you don't situation with policing in this country