NORTHUMBRIA’S POLICE AND CRIME CHIEF WRITES FOR THE CHRONICLE

THIS week is Mental Health Awareness week and that gives us all an opportunity to reflect on what mental health means to us.

It is incredibly important that we continue to chip away at the stigma that surrounds mental health both in the workplace and in our own lives. Every single person has mental health. It is just a question of whether a person experiences issues with their mental health in their life.

The chances are there may come a point when we feel the need for extra support.

Police officers and staff deal with some horrific cases whether that is responding to a road traffic collision, investigating a murder or reviewing thousands of indecent images.

It is hard for those men and women to then go home at the end of a shift and forget about all the horrendous things they have seen this day.

That is why I am committed to making sure Northumbria Police has support networks in place and continues to be an organisation where employees can speak openly about their mental health.

Improving the country’s mental health is a societal issue and there is a huge amount of work to be done to ensure people can get support when they need it.

Police and paramedics are regularly responding to incidents where people are in a crisis and feel like they have nothing left to live for. In years gone by these organisations would have responded independently and individuals like this might have found themselves in a police cell.

We knew this was wrong and that there was a better way to deal with these calls for service and break these vulnerable people out of the vicious cycle they had been trapped in. Back in 2014, Northumbria joined forces with Northumberland, Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation Trust (NTW) and the Mental Health Street Triage team was born. Since then it has gone from strength to strength and Northumbria Police now has one of the lowest rates of detentions under Section 169 of the Mental Health Act. Instead vulnerable people are referred to a crisis team where specialist mental health nurses can assess them and ensure they get the help they need. Not only does this mean people are receiving a better service but it means police officers are freed up to get back to policing their local communities. This approach has received national recognition and the model is being adopted by other police forces across the UK because of its success. At a Home Affairs Select Committee last week the charity MIND singled out Northumbria Police for the work they are doing around mental health. I am determined to ensure this positive work continues and that vulnerable people who we come into contact with us get all the support they can.

I am determined to ensure this positive work continues and that vulnerable people get all the support they can