Right Care, Right Person is an approach designed to ensure that people of all ages, who have health and/or social care needs, are responded to by the right person, with the right skills, training, and experience to best meet their needs.

Though the approach can be applied more broadly than cases relating to mental health, this document is focused on the interface between policing and mental health services, as one step towards implementing RCRP.

At the centre of the RCRP approach is a threshold to assist police in making decisions about when it is appropriate for them to respond to incidents, including those which relate to people with mental health needs. The threshold for a police response to a mental health-related incident is:

  • to investigate a crime that has occurred or is occurring; or
  • to protect people, when there is a real and immediate risk to the life of a person, or of a person being subject to or at risk of serious harm

Alert:

If you are concerned that a person is at risk of life or serious harm, please contact 999 immediately and the police will respond.

If you are concerned about your own or someone else's wellbeing, please contact call 111 and select option 2 to speak to a mental health professional.

Right Care, Right Person is being implemented in different stages. Collaborative working is underwayto make arrangements to work towards ending police involvement in the following situations, where the RCRP threshold is not met:

  • initial response to people experiencing mental health crisis.
  • responding to concerns for welfare of people with mental health needs (i.e., undertaking welfare checks), where the person is already in contact with a mental health service or other service commissioned to provide mental health support.
  • instances of missing persons from mental health facilities, and walkouts of people with mental health needs from other health facilities (e.g., the Emergency Department).
  • conveyance in police vehicles

These are being carefully considered to ensure people in these situations are reponded by a qualified individual to assess and treat the person's needs.

 

Right Care Right Person Acute Scenarios Poster

The Urgent Crisis Response (UCR) Service was first implemented in January 2024 to support West Midlands Ambulance Service (WMAS) colleagues and their callers presenting with mental health needs without physical injury. The service aims to support those callers who have no immediate risk to life, avoiding ambulance deployments and transfer to A+E departments and ultimately providing the best mental health support for patients in the best place.

The team can offer advice and support to WMAS crews on callouts, as well as accept direct referrals from call handlers in WMAS call centre, (via WMAS cad portal and direct helpline). The Team can deliver phone support, signpost to more appropriate services (such as Sanctuary Hubs) and provide an urgent 2 hour crisis response in a community setting where needed. This service runs 7 days per week for referrals between 8am and 8pm.

In addition in November 2024 a new 24 hour element was added to UCR to support West Midlands Police colleagues decision making and coordination of people under consideration for s136 detention of the MHA (1983). This model is aimed to reduce unrequired use of legislation through improved multi-agency decision making, including the input of experienced mental health clinicians, at the earliest opportunity to offer least restrictive approach to patient support in a mental health crisis.

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