What Works? Collaborative Police and Health interventions for mental health distress

Conclusions

Policing and mental health distress has become a prominent issue in Scotland and there is recognition that there is opportunity to work together in this area for better outcomes. This review is an initial look at the evidence on policing and mental health, focusing on interventions and what works. This forms the basis to start to inform decisions around whether and how policing and health should work together and what this should look like.

There are many examples of innovative and succesful collaborations across the world for improving processes and outcomes for those in mental health distress presenting to the police. This demonstrates, firstly, that Scotland is not alone in facing this challenge and secondly, that there is a wealth of information that can inform the next steps taken in Scotland.

There are three main types of intervention approach and each can lead to different outcomes for the services or the individual. Therefore, it is clearly important to consider what the desired outcome of a planned intervention is. For example, reduced time spent by the police dealing with incidents, provide support to more individuals, smoother process and resolutions for the individuals, cost savings, better use of place of safety etc.

Overall, the evidence points to the most successful approaches being those which are well co-ordinated between policing and health, involve a high degree of information sharing and clear communications and consider the needs of local areas. There is also scope for innovation. One area that appears particularly untapped through our examination of the evidence is technological innovation. There may be potential to learn from other areas of health here. For example, remote assessments may be used as an important initial assessment before following up with a face to face assessment.

While this review has largely explored colloborative approaches that respond to individuals presenting in crisis, it has also touched on a more 'upstream' approach which employs these same interventions but in a more targeted way ( e.g. to areas where mental health calls or required transportations are particularly high). This approach has the aim of preventing individuals from eventually reaching a crisis point. While additional research and evaluation is needed, findings from existing evidence (including evidence from other areas) reinforces the wisdom of exploring these further.

The recent establishment of the Health and Justice Collaboration Improvement Board could be a real facilitator in overcoming some of the structural and cultural barriers. The Board is ideally placed to direct a strong coordinated approach, which could lead to improved outcomes for both sectors and for individuals.