MP leading fight to help missing who are found
IN the first six months of this year, 35 people went missing before being found dead in Greater Manchester.
Of those, 22 had significant mental health problems – and 13 took their own lives. Some of those deaths could have been prevented.
Many may have been missing before. Many may not have been given the help they needed once they were found. Many may have thought going missing again was the only answer.
Something has to change. That’s the view of a Parliamentary inquiry led by campaigning Stockport MP Ann Coffey, who chairs the All Party Parliamentary Group for Runaway and Missing Children and Adults. The group has been investigating how missing people are helped once they’re found – and the often dire consequences if they’re not.
Around 126,000 reports of people vanishing across the country are made each year. Of those, around 600 are later found dead. About 80 per cent suffer from mental ill-heath – and most commit suicide. Around one in three people who go missing do so again.
Inquiry chiefs say that when a missing person is found, it is vital they are given proper support and that everything possible is done to understand why they left home. It might stop them going missing again. It might save their life.
MPs are calling for people not to be ‘found then forgotten,’ emphasising that their disappearance should be treated as the ‘red flag’ that triggers proper support. Some people, once they are found, are left isolated and alone.
MPs have now made a series of recommendations – the main one being that mental health services must ‘step up’ and take on a greater role given the high numbers of missing people suffering from depression, anxiety and other mental illnesses.
One woman told the inquiry that support once she had been found was ‘woefully inadequate.’ She said she was seen by a police officer who merely asked her name, address, age and if she wanted to report a crime.
The woman said she was not asked why she went missing or offered any specialist support, despite banging her head against a wall while she was being interviewed. Officers said she could leave when she told them she would go to a friend’s house.
Ms Coffey said: “Going missing is a red flag moment. A warning sign of crisis in someone’s life that should trigger support. Vulnerable people should not be just found and forgotten.
“The evidence nationally is that the police are firefighting this problem almost single-handed.
“But this is a not predominantly a police problem, it is a health problem and mental health services need to step up before more lives are lost.
“The police can find missing people and check they are alive, but it is up to health and social care services to help identify risk and to support people.
“There is no doubt that a more systematic multiagency approach with a high input from health could prevent deaths and reduce the risk of people repeatedly going missing.”
The inquiry’s other recommendations include: ●●IMPROVED training for call handlers and frontline officers to identify mental health issues ●●BETTER initial risk assessments, as well as return interviews ●●POLICE and NHS Trusts mapping ‘hot spot’ locations with high numbers of missing reports ●●THE Department of Health monitoring numbers of people going missing from hospitals and care
Jon Rouse, chief officer for Greater Manchester Health and Social Care Partnership, the body made up of NHS organisations, councils and others with responsibility for the city-region’s devolved £6billion health and care budget, said they had a specific suicide prevention plan and were working with other local agencies to try and ensure a more ‘joined-up’ approach.