POLICE were called to Borders General Hospital 135 times in seven months, it has emerged.

Concerns were raised over the security of vulnerable people at a meeting of Scottish Borders Council’s police, fire and rescue board.

The figures relate to the period between April 1 and November 30 last year, and include calls to deal with anti-social behaviour, visitors to the hospital and missing persons.

Delivering a report to councillors on the progress of crime fighting and prevention in the region, Chief Inspector Stuart Reid said these calls can take a huge chunk out of policing resources.

He told the meeting: “There have been 522 missing people reported this year to date, for this period last year it was 430, showing an increase of 21 per cent.

“This increase in the number of missing persons does impact greatly upon us as they are very resource-intensive.

“The majority of these people who are reported missing did have some kind of vulnerability, with mental health being the most prevalent.

“A large proportion of these people were missing from a small number of establishments.

“By way of an example, from our colleagues at NHS Borders, we were called to the hospital 135 times over a seven month period, so that shows how resource-intensive it is for us to deal with missing people.

“Again, there is some reassurance that 100 per cent of the people are recovered, and there’s no one out there still missing.”

Kelso councillor Euan Robson was taken aback by those figures, saying: “That’s an astonishing number, 522. That’s two a day almost. I know from experience, when I was involved in a missing persons incident, there were 12 police officers involved on that particular occasion.

“What are the small number of establishments doing to prevent this some of this? Over a hundred people from the NHS, for example. Is there anything that can be done to reduce this number?”

Chief Inspector Reid told the meeting that work is in progress to support NHS Borders in reviewing missing persons procedures, saying: “A paper has been published. It’s being reviewed at the moment, and we will be working with our colleagues at the NHS to try and rectify this because, as you’ve pointed out, it is quite a staggering figure, it really is.

“We do ensure that when we are called, we are responding to a missing person.”

Galashiels councillor Harry Scott added: “Premises that have got vulnerable people in them need to have a fairly robust search programme in place before they start calling police.

“I know that the hospital in my day did have a robust searching policy, and I’d like to think that is kept up to date and police are not called unless that’s been done.”

Malcolm Dixon, a non-executive member of the NHS Borders board, was surprised by the figures, saying: “It’s news to me, I have to say, that the NHS has reported so many. There must be something that can be done about that.

“I take up Councillor Scott’s point of view that a search protocol needs carried out before they pick up the phone.”

Despite the number of calls made to police, an NHS Borders spokesperson said its records show only a small proportion of the calls to Police Scotland relate to missing persons. 

In fact, between May and December 2018, NHS Borders’ records show just 10 calls were made to the police in relation to absconded patients.

The spokesperson said: “In order to maintain patient safety, it is not advised for patients to leave healthcare settings without being appropriately treated and discharged.

“In cases where a specific patient vulnerability is identified, we may restrict access to areas to keep them safe.

“We have a missing persons/absconding policy which includes escalation to management and police when appropriate.

“According to our records, the police were contacted on 10 occasions in relation to absconded patients during the last seven months, between May and December 2018.”