A SENIOR officer has revealed that police officers are looking after mental health patients due to a shortage of psychiatric beds.

This means that police officers are sometimes unable to go out on the beat, according to Assistant chief constable Terry Woods.

It has also emerged in one case this week that a woman waited for 64 hours in a mental health decision unit and A&E in Blackburn with officers due to there being no psychiatric beds.

Another patient waited 40 hours for suitable care.

ACC Woods said policing is facing ‘unprecedented’ levels of demand involving people reaching crisis point with mental health issues.

He said: “On many occasions the police service is becoming the first service people reach out to respond to this.

“When they do and officers deem that they are in immediate danger, they can detain those people under section 136 of the Mental Health Act in order to move them to a place of safety for a medical examination.

“The place of safety is often A&E but preferably a mental health unit.

“However within Lancashire there is currently a significant shortage of available mental health beds and indeed often none at all, therefore we are most commonly taking these people to already strained A&E departments.

He said it meant vulnerable people are left waiting with police officers in busy A&E departments.

He added: “This also reduces the amount of police officers that are available to support other calls for service.

“Over the past weekend in Lancashire there were times when multiple police officers were being used to support vulnerable people in hospitals as no mental health beds were available.”

Clive Grunshaw, Lancashire’s Police and Crime Commissioner said a ‘large amount of the increasing pressures on police is non-crime demand.’

He said around 80 per cent of the calls for service into Lancashire Constabulary are non-crime related.

He said: “Demand is also becoming more complex, with calls taking around 37 per cent longer, with increases in missing persons cases and vulnerable adult referrals.

“This all highlights that cuts to other services increasingly mean that the police are left picking up the pieces when people’s lives fall apart.”

A spokesman for the county’s main mental health organisation Lancashire Care Foundation Trust said they were currently experiencing ‘high demand in our mental health services.’

The spokesman said: “. Our number one priority is to ensure that our service users receive the right care at the right time and the most appropriate support for their needs.

“For some people this may mean an admission to a bed, however we are also able to support people outside of hospital within our enhanced community services. We have put extra resources in the community to support people in mental health crisis and we are working to further develop the range of services available for people in crisis with our partners including the police and we welcome their input. They play a vital role in responding to people in crisis and we are committed to supporting them in doing this to ensure that people get a responsive service when they are most vulnerable and to reduce the impact on the force.

“For those people that do need a bed our central bed management hub oversees admissions and these are prioritised based on clinical need. There are some occasions when admission can be delayed and this can be due to bed availability especially if a person has specific needs that need to be met.

“There has been a steady increase in the number of people detained under s136 by the police in Lancashire since January 2018, and we recognise the additional demand that this has put on police resources as well mental health services. We will continue our close working with the police to ensure that services in Lancashire are as responsive as possible to meet the mental health needs of our communities.”

Commenting on the patient waiting 64 hours, Lancashire Care said it is ‘not a common occurrence’ for someone to spend longer than 23 hours in a Mental Health Decision Unit.

A spokesman added: “They are designed to provide a short term, safe, therapeutic environment for stabilisation, assessment and support prior to moving the person on to the most appropriate service for their needs.

“This could be an admission to a bed or intensive support from a community service.”

“Whilst we cannot go into the circumstances of individual people, conversations take place on a person by person basis with those people accessing services on the Mental Health Decision Unit to ensure we are meeting their immediate needs appropriately.”